Toni Irizarry acknowledges that the economy has improved. Compared to the first wave of the pandemic, when Las Vegas went dark and unemployment soared to levels not seen since the Great Depression, these are days of relative normalcy.
Ms. Irizarry, 64, oversees a cafe at the Orleans Hotel and Casino, a property just off the Las Vegas Strip that caters mostly to locals. The guests returned, filling the blackjack and roulette tables to the cacophony of slot machines – the sound of money.
He started in the bus hospitality industry when he was just 16 years old. Her wages allowed her to buy a house, raise three children and buy each of them their first car. But as he contemplates the future, he can’t shake the feeling of foreboding.
The perspective of people like Ms. Irizarry could be critical in determining who occupies the White House. Nevada is one of six battleground states that are likely to decide the outcome of November’s presidential election. Its financial center, Las Vegas, was built on dreams of easy money. This proved a winning proposition for generations of workers, yielding middle-class wages for bartenders, restaurant servers, casino dealers and maids. However, over the past two decades, a series of shocks have eroded confidence.
First, a speculative real estate bonanza gone spectacularly wrong, turning the city into the epicenter of a national foreclosure crisis. The Great Recession caused steep layoffs in the hospitality industry, dispelling the notion that gambling was immune to the recession. Then in 2020, the pandemic turned Las Vegas into a ghost town.
“There’s this sense of the unknown,” Ms. Irizarry said. “People are scared. They think, “If this could happen, which we’ve never had before, what else could happen?”
That the fate of the 2024 presidential election could hinge on economic sentiment is widely taken for granted among political players.
In battleground states, 57 percent of registered voters identified the economy as the most important issue in an October poll by The New York Times and Siena College. More than half of those polled described economic conditions as “bad” — a key reason President Biden was trailing his presumptive Republican rival, former President Donald J. Trump, in five of the six states.
Such signs of concern appear to be at odds with data points that reflect a clear strengthening of the US economy. Incomes have risen, unemployment remains low and consumer confidence is improving. Recession fears have been buoyed by economic growth that registered 3.3 percent in the final three months of 2023. And the Super Bowl, which debuts in Las Vegas on Sunday, will bring a short-term boost of up to $700 millions in the local economy.
However, a sense of insecurity has seeped into the crevices of everyday experience. That sentiment is especially felt in Nevada, a state that depends on a single industry — casino resorts and the hospitality trade — for about a quarter of its jobs.
In Nevada, 59 percent of respondents described the economy as “poor,” the highest margin among the six states. Seventeen percent of registered Democrats said they intended to vote for Mr. Trump.
The state’s unemployment rate is falling sharply, hitting 5.4 percent in November — a fraction of the 31 percent recorded in April 2020 — though it remains the highest of any state. Wages have increased, especially for more than 40,000 leisure and hospitality workers represented by a pair of local unions. The rate of inflation across a range of consumer goods has slowed significantly.
But these figures do not leave out key sources of anxiety playing out across the country, even globally, and whose origins are not limited to the four-year windows typically used to evaluate presidential administrations.
While prices for many goods have stopped rising, they remain higher than before the pandemic, especially for critical things like gas, groceries and rent.
Higher interest rates — the result of the Federal Reserve tightening credit to stifle inflation — have increased credit card burdens for those carrying balances. They have multiplied mortgage payments for homeowners whose interest payments fluctuate with wider interest rates.
Of particular concern in Nevada is the recognition that potentially lucrative pursuits such as advanced manufacturing could take years to generate significant numbers of jobs.
For decades, Nevada leaders have tried to reduce the state’s reliance on casinos and tourism. Las Vegas is quickly filling warehouses as the metro area emerges as a hub for product distribution. Businesses focused on the green energy transition are creating high-paying jobs, especially near Reno.
But Nevada still depends heavily on the willingness of people around the world to fly in, flock to resorts and convention centers, and spread their dollars around casinos, restaurants and entertainment venues. Which makes the business subject to sudden changes of fortune. Which makes people nervous.
“We are still very vulnerable to another recession,” said Andrew Woods, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “If the American economy decides to take a deep dive, we are no more resilient than we were before.”
The executives of the high prices
Much of the misery in Nevada, as in the rest of the country, centers on the high cost of daily necessities along with housing.
Antonio Muñoz, a former police officer, owns 911 Taco Bar, a restaurant hidden inside a food court near the Strip. He laments that the price of chicken has risen to $3.50 a pound from $1.20 before the pandemic. A five-gallon jug of cooking oil has risen to $60 from $25. He was forced to raise wages to keep the five full-time employees.
Much of his business is dedicated to catering. The big events are back in full force, he said. The annual Consumer Electronics Show in early January generated a flurry of orders for rib eye and shrimp tacos as tech companies hosted guests in private suites. He was getting ready for the Super Bowl.
But smaller bookings – particularly birthday parties – fell by a fifth last year compared to 2022. He blames Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, conflict in the Middle East and furor over the US election for making people nervous and tight with money.
He worries that the worry itself could destroy the economy.
“I feel like it’s drifting,” Mr. Muñoz said. “People seem to be waiting to see what happens.”
More payments, more security
A team celebrates strong earnings. After threatening to strike, tens of thousands of people represented by Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165 secured a deal that includes 32 percent raises over the next five years.
Union workers played a critical role in turning out voters for Mr. Biden four years ago, and their higher pay could motivate them to do so again. And given the importance of their wages in fueling local spending, the new contracts are a source of economic vitality in themselves.
Kimberly Dopler has worked as a cocktail waitress at Wynn’s Las Vegas for nearly 20 years. The job is physically demanding and fraught with the pitfalls of taking care of clients who are “drinking and gambling and not in their right state,” she said. However, it addresses these resulting security risks.
“I got to go home with money in my pocket every day and I can take my shoes off and relax,” he said.
The union contract has bolstered her sense that the economy is strong. “I see a lot of hiring going on in my line of work, event hiring around town,” Ms. Doppler said. “I feel like people have a good opportunity in this town to get a job.”
Raymond Lujan, 61, a union worker and waiter at Edge Steakhouse, a restaurant inside the Westgate Las Vegas, was born and raised in the city. His mother worked as a cocktail waitress at the Stardust. His brother is a bell ringer at the Bellagio.
Before the pandemic, Mr Lujan had never been out of a job. When the restaurant where he worked closed, he drew on his savings, but many of his co-workers wrote live checks to check.
He remains confident of a future centered on the hospitality industry.
“This is Vegas,” he said. “It’s still the destination capital of the world.”
“It’s still hard”
But for workers without the protection of a union, Las Vegas remains something else: an economy subject to violent fluctuations.
Before the pandemic, Carlos Arias, 51, earned more than $2,000 a week as an Uber driver. When the casinos closed, he got a job as a cook — first at Denny’s for $13.75 an hour, then at IHOP for 50 cents more.
Suddenly earning only a quarter of his previous income, Mr. Arias and his partner, a manager at McDonald’s, struggled to pay the $1,100 monthly rent on their one-bedroom apartment. They were tapping credit cards to keep gas in their car. They limited grocery shopping to bare essentials like rice, beans and instant ramen.
They fell behind on the payments on the Cadillac van. One morning, it was gone, impounded for recovery.
He got a new job as a cook at a Mexican restaurant for an extra $1 an hour, then a second job at a restaurant inside the Ellis Island casino. For a year, he worked both jobs, getting up at 4 a.m. for the first shift and sometimes not getting home until after midnight.
He felt dizzy, his vision blurred. He couldn’t tell if he was sick or just exhausted and didn’t have health insurance. When he nearly collapsed, he went to the hospital and was diagnosed with diabetes. The drug the doctor prescribed cost more than $50 for a 30-day course—more than he could handle.
Early last year, he got a job at a restaurant at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, making $19 an hour.
On paper, Mr. Arias presents as an example of an improving economy. He earns more than he did during the worst of the pandemic. He has health insurance and takes medication for his diabetes.
But he earns less than half of what he was making before the apocalypse began.
“It’s still hard,” he said. “You go to the store and buy $100 worth of groceries and there’s nothing in the car.”
The sound is produced by Adrienne Hurst.
