Tuesday's State of the Union address gives President Trump a big platform to tout the economy's performance on his watch.

He has already given himself a grade -- "A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus," he told Politico in December. The report card for the economy is a bit more mixed, however, after his first year back in office.

Here are the grades for some key metrics.

Jobs | Needs improvement

It is rough out there for job seekers, unless they are looking for work in healthcare. U.S. employers added only 181,000 jobs in 2025, down sharply from the prior year to the lowest figure outside of a recession in more than two decades.

Economic and trade uncertainty made some companies more reluctant to add workers. Some tech companies are reversing their postpandemic hiring boom by slashing payrolls. Trump's immigration crackdown meant fewer foreigners available for hire.

The labor market showed signs of life in January 2026, with employers adding 130,000 jobs -- well above economists' predictions. But hiring was largely anemic beyond a surge in healthcare and social services.

Unemployment | Exceeds expectations

Normally, a steep drop in hiring leads to a rise in unemployment. This time is different. The unemployment rate did rise slightly on the year, topping out at 4.5% in November before sliding down toward last month's 4.3%. These numbers are low by historical standards.

A key reason, according to economists: the drop in immigration. Goldman Sachs estimates that net immigration -- the difference between people moving to the U.S. and people leaving -- fell to around 500,000 in 2025, down from an average of around one million in the 2010s. That drop means fewer people looking for work, which means fewer new jobs are needed to keep the unemployment rate stable.

Inflation | Shows promise

Trump has imposed tariffs and waged trade wars without triggering the inflation surge many economists feared. The annual inflation rate was 2.4% last month, lower than the 3% in January 2025, when Trump returned to the White House. A different measure of inflation preferred by the Federal Reserve showed price growth accelerating in December.

That doesn't mean tariffs -- partially invalidated by the Supreme Court last week -- came free. A recent Federal Reserve Bank of New York analysis said U.S. firms and consumers were shouldering nearly 90% of the economic burden through November. Prices also did pick up slightly after the "Liberation Day" tariff rollout in April.

Americans are weary of prices that remain much higher than they were before the pandemic, even if the pace of increases has slowed. They are enjoying some relief at the gas pump, but are shelling out for coffee and ground beef, two items that have seen some big price hikes.

Wages | Satisfactory

Overall, real wages rose slightly faster in the 12 months ended in January than in the prior 12 months. That resilience, combined with the low unemployment rate, helps explain why consumer spending has held up, boosting the economy. But the picture isn't all positive. Americans with the lowest incomes saw their real wages fall in 2025, according to a study from the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that analyzed census data.

A weakening labor market tends to hit low-skill workers first, and that is exactly what happened last year. These are the kinds of workers who also don't tend to benefit from stock-market investments lifting wealthier households. Economists call this phenomenon a K-shaped economy: The wealthy are surging ahead, while the poorest are falling behind.

Stock Market | Exceeds expectations

Stocks were on a tear last year.

This seemed unlikely on April's "Liberation Day," when new tariffs sent markets into a tailspin. The downturn was brief. The S&P 500 index is up by more than a third from its April low as investors piled into AI-related stocks, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average recently hit 50,000 for the first time. That is good news for the economy: Rising stocks boost household wealth, propping up consumer spending.

Economic Growth | Acceptable

The economy has managed to keep growing despite the hiring slowdown. But the pace has slowed.

Gross domestic product in 2025 expanded by 2.2%, measured from the fourth quarter of the prior year, down from 2.4% in 2024 and the slowest pace since 2022. The record-long government shutdown in the fall crimped growth in the most recent quarter.

That is hardly the "new golden age" Trump promised on the campaign trail, but it is also better than what many anticipated after last spring's tariff rollout, when economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expected growth of just 0.8% last year.

Trade Deficit | Needs improvement

Economists and politicians differ on whether the U.S. buying a lot more goods from other countries than it sells is fundamentally bad. Some blame trade deficits for killing blue-collar jobs. Others see the imbalance as the mark of an advanced economy with lots of foreign investment.

Trump isn't a deficit fan, but he hasn't managed to stop them: The goods-trade deficit rose to a record $1.241 trillion in 2025, up from $1.215 trillion in 2024, although it fell slightly as a share of the economy. Tariffs weren't enough to discourage imports, partly because many goods were exempt. Also, U.S. firms were often able to switch to suppliers in countries facing lower levies, like tapping smartphones from India rather than China. Surging chip imports from Taiwan to feed the AI boom also helped prop up the trade deficit.

Manufacturing | Needs improvement

Manufacturing employment fell for eight straight months after Trump announced his sweeping global tariffs. The levies helped some companies by sheltering them from foreign competition, but they also hurt by creating uncertainty and by raising the cost of production. Supply chains are often highly global, and many of the machines and materials U.S. manufacturers use come from abroad.

Despite weak employment, however, manufacturing production rose 2.6% on the year, according to the Federal Reserve. Manufacturing jobs also edged higher in January. Also, a monthly index on factory activity from the Institute for Supply Management showed expansion for the first time since February 2025.

Housing Affordability | Needs improvement

A median-income household looking to buy a median-price home now has to set aside 42% of its monthly earnings for mortgage payments, property taxes and insurance. That is slightly improved from 44% in January 2025 but still a heavy cost.

Mortgage rates eased last year yet remain far above where they were in early 2022, when the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates to battle inflation. Home prices haven't budged. And rents have come down in some Sunbelt cities but are still far higher than before the pandemic.