Is the US in recession?

17 comments

1. No

   We are not in a recession, the economy is actually doing very well.

   The political climate is such that, for some reason, the population is extremely pessimistic about the economy despite the economy performing very well.

2. Recession is defined by a recession of GDP, i.e., growth going negative. We are not. And the leading indicators are also telling us that the chances for one are softening.

3. We are not, however a lot of economists are predicting we are headed there in the next few months. What is happening matches some models from the past.

   However, its been predicted for the last 10 or 12 months and it hasn’t happened yet, but there are factors that seem artificial in how they are propping up the economy. A lot of those tailwinds are dwindling rapidly, the most obvious example is the climbing FED rate. Banks don’t have cheap money to loan and yadda yadda.

4. I don’t know the exact metrics for recession or not. I just know what I see.

   There’s a lot of people out, spending, and shopping. Lots of travel. Maybe some people are pulling back and focusing on the essentials but I feel a lot of people are acting pretty normally.

   Personally the inflation at the grocery store is kind of annoying me but we’re able to roll with the punches.

5. Technically, nobody can answer if we are in a recession until after two quarters of negative growth.

   Inflation is a major concern. We’re seeing quite a bit of job and spending cuts by companies, partially in response. The ISM is low and has been declining for a year.

   The big risk now is contagion. Germany just announced that they are in a recession. In our interconnected world, if more countries fall in we could as well.

6. In terms of the stock prices and the economy and current business climate, no. But with how little some of us can actually stretch our dollars now, it sure feels like one.

7. For a recession you’d need 2 consecutive quarters with a reduction in GDP.

   In the first quarter of 2023 the US saw GDP increase by 1.3%.

   So the earliest we could officially be in a recession is the start of October.

8. It’s still in recession for 2 reasons:

   1) Inflation/cost of living
   2) Job wages have not kept up with inflation since the 90s, and especially not now after COVID. So any stagnant pay is actually a pay cut.

9. Recession is indicated by deflation, low interest rates, high unemployment, and low spending.( and indirectly by GDP)

   So we have inflation, High interest rates low unemployment as far as spending is concerned well..

   Right now dealerships have empty lots because they sell everything as soon as it comes in and people are paying $2,000+ to see Taylor Swift in sold out stadiums

   Yeah no recession.

10. Biden’s handlers have driven the US into a recession.

    Biden himself has obvious dementia and isn’t doing anything himself.

11. No. At least where I am, people are throwing money all over the place these days for all sorts of frivolous stuff. In fact, they’re LOOKING for reasons to go out and spend. So no, anecdotally, it doesn’t feel or appear we are in a recession at all.

12. Don’t worry, we redefined recession so that won’t go into one.

    Seriously, though, the unemployment rate isn’t a great metric for anything. When people give up hope and stop looking for work, the unemployment rate falls. The employment rate (how many Americans are working) is a better metric, though it doesn’t take into account whether they’ve accepted a crappy job just to make *some* money.

    The latest numbers show the GDP is declining, so, yes, we’re probably heading for a recession if we’re not in one already.

13. The National Bureau of Economic Research defines recessions based on periods of continued, significant decline over several months. Economists have been predicting us heading into a recession for a while now, and we could be going into one. But we aren’t currently.

    Note that the NBER’s recession end dates only indicate the START of recovery. They have the COVID downturn marked for February through April of 2020, but that doesn’t mean everybody was back to pre-pandemic operations that summer.

14. I follow a bunch of econ-blogs.

    Anyone who is actually honest about the data (and isn’t a political hack pretending to be an economist **cough* Paul Krugman *cough**) is genuinely confused right now.

    [A recent post I’ve seen describes it as such:](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/05/i-remain-puzzled-but-more-are-flirting-with-this-idea.html)

    > If I truly believed the average of GDP + GDI (and I mostly do believe it) then one could reasonably describe the economy as having been in recession for some time, but a very very strange recession with strong employment gains and low unemployment–so a productivity decline.

    I honestly personally think what we are seeing is absolutely unprecedented in the history of the modern economy. For nearly two years governments around the world basically outlawed large chunks of the economy, declared whole swaths of workers as “unessential”, shut down the economy, then when prices started to rise (as we saw shortages and bare shelves on grocery stores) the government threw money at us–forgetting that you can’t buy your way out of a shortage.

    And at the same time those same governments fed us a level of anxiety that caused increased suicide rates and rates of depression and drug usage–which no-one really wanted to talk about.

    And so now the world’s economy has fundamentally shifted. We’re seeing stories about how [tourists in China are spending less on travel](https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-barbecue-craze-in-china-shows-why-its-economy-is-undercooked-a314adb2?st=iw0mkvjy1r9zya3&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink), and [may not travel abroad for years](https://www.wsj.com/articles/worlds-biggest-tourism-spenders-arent-travelingand-may-not-for-years-3195de39?st=nwjp7kkjjxrvltg&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink). [Food inflation in the UK is absolutely off the charts, going up nearly 20% y/y.](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65682243) (By way of contrast, food inflation in the US for the same period was around 4%ish y/y.) The whiplash of people who stopped buying stuff at home (because retail outlets were closed and they had to gear up to work at home) [is triggering layoffs in tech](https://www.npr.org/2023/01/26/1150884331/layoffs-tech-meta-microsoft-google-amazon-economy) and [online retail](https://fortune.com/2022/11/16/amazon-begins-mass-layoffs-economy-retail-ecommerce/); meanwhile, restaurants, who just two years prior had to fire everyone during COVID shutdowns [can’t find people to staff their restaurants now.](https://restaurant.opentable.com/resources/restaurant-labor-shortage/).

    The economy is, fundamentally, the collective decisions we all make as we all go about trying to live our lives.

    And we were all subjected to massive stress, forced to stay at home, told to panic about a pandemic that killed millions, governments even going so far as to contemplate [simply remaking the entire economy wholesale to fit the desires of corporate managers and ‘global stakeholders’](https://www.weforum.org/great-reset).

    So now the economy is shifting as *all of our decisions shift.* We were forced to stay home, so now we’re trying to go out as much as we can afford to–which, in some parts of the world (like China) may not be as much as we could afford to before.

    There are winners in this shift: small businesses selling barbecue in obscure corners in China are suddenly on people’s radar. There will be losers: [the San Francisco commercial real estate market is, to put this politely, fucked.](https://sfstandard.com/business/san-francisco-braces-for-epic-commercial-real-estate-crash/)

    And all the inflation, GDP, productivity indicators and the rest are all cattywampus, because of these fundamental societal, social and economic shifts the world’s governments pushed the economy through.

    (Please note: **I am not passing judgement as to the necessity of these measures. Only noting the consequences.**)

    —-

    So I don’t know if “recession” is the right word to use, because it suggests a slowdown after a period of overproduction and the creation of inefficiencies in the economy that need to be shaken off.

    That is, in the normal business cycle, what happens is that large corporations become complacent, they hire too many people, they make too many things we don’t quite want, they simply get too big and too inefficient. And a recession comes along when the inefficient payers either shrink, shake off their excesses, or die.

    But that’s not what this is. What we have now is the aftermath of a global government driven economic shutdown by leaders who thought if they force people out of work at their jobs in a restaurant, six months or a year later, those people would go back and take the exact same job and pick up from where they were before. (Instead of what people did: they went and found newer jobs–sometimes even better jobs. Those waiters and food preparers and dishwashers who then got jobs as truck drivers, warehouse managers and who went back to school to be nurses? Yeah, *they’ve moved on.* Totally not what our “elite” leaders thought they’d do.)

    So this is not normal, and it’s okay to be confused. We have an economy that is sucking wind with inflation because companies are still not making enough of what we want. Major cities are dying now because of a lack of a tax base because wealthier folks simply left for their ‘staycation’ dream homes in other states, and those who did stay–well, they’re happy working at home in the suburbs, meaning they’re not there to support a whole industry of little shops who supported workers in downtown buildings by selling them sandwiches and operating little convenience stores.

    The GDP is growing, but our wealth is shrinking. And, as always, the rich get richer–except for the ones now demanding a bailout from the government. Like those who own San Francisco real estate.

    Be confused.

    I am.

    Though honestly I don’t want any of these wealthier landholders to either be bailed out, or to force people back to work so they can justify their tax base or their out-of-date property investments. Screw them.

15. Technically no, because the wealthy are still making more money than ever.

    We’re experiencing price gauging, not inflation.

16. As long as they keep raising interest rates we will be fine

17. I personally am the recession, down right broke, homeless, lost everything I’ve worked so so hard for because everything and I mean EVERYTHING has gone up in price but WAGES, therefore leaving me homeless. DAYUM BIDEN