Economy statistics
| Where | Briefing screen and dashboard |
|---|---|
| Toggle | Economic Simulation, chosen on the setup screen |
| Statistics | GDP growth, unemployment, inflation, fiscal balance, national debt |
| Premium | No |
The economy statistics are five numbers shown on the briefing screen and the dashboard whenever the Economic Simulation toggle is switched on. Each month, the game judges what effect the President's enacted policy has on these figures, scales that effect by how well the cabinet carries the policy out, and applies the result alongside the ordinary month-to-month drift of the economy.
- GDP growth is the annualised growth rate, shown as a percentage. A custom presidency opens at 2.5 per cent.
- Unemployment is the current unemployment rate, shown as a percentage. A custom presidency opens at 4.2 per cent.
- Inflation is the annual inflation rate, shown as a percentage. A custom presidency opens at 3.1 per cent.
- Fiscal balance is the federal budget's annual surplus or deficit, in billions of dollars. A custom presidency opens with a deficit of 1,800 billion dollars.
- National debt is the cumulative total, in trillions of dollars. A custom presidency opens at 36 trillion dollars.
A named historical scenario, and a workshop pack built on one, can open with different figures to match its own decade. Each card also carries an arrow marking the change since the previous turn: rising GDP growth, a fiscal balance moving toward surplus, and a debt that is falling are all shown as good news, while rising unemployment and rising inflation are both shown as bad. When Deployments and War is switched on and troops are in the field, the fiscal balance card also shows the yearly cost of keeping them there. A governor in Career Mode sees the same five cards, scaled to a state's own budget.
How much of a policy's economic effect actually lands depends on how well the cabinet carries the policy out, in the same way described on the Cabinet and Vice President page: a well-run cabinet delivers more of the intended effect, a poorly run or vacant one delivers less, and a blocked policy delivers none. The five figures also drift a little on their own every month, independent of anything the President does, and inflation or growth running very high tends to ease back down over time rather than staying there.
The Economic Simulation toggle is the setting players discuss most, because the economy has behaved unpredictably since the game launched, and work on it is ongoing.
The five figures are part of what every voter and the President's own analyst weigh when reacting to a policy, and they also feed into how the country votes at a midterm or presidential election: strong growth helps the President, while high unemployment and high inflation both hurt.