This comes just a few days after the Biden administration's Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen attempted to preemptively head off talk of labeling the decline a recession when she declared that a second consecutive decline in GDP doesn't really point to recession, and "We're not in a recession" because the labor market-a lagging indicator of economic activity-is allegedly too strong.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre continued Yellen's PR campaign on Wednesday quibbling over the "Technical" definition of a recession.
Given Thursday's GDP numbers the most appropriate answer to the question "Is the US technically in a recession?" is "Who cares?" The data is clear that the US economy is extremely weak and gives every impression that it's getting weaker.
The "Technical" definition of a recession is decided by an obscure panel of eight economists-seriously, it's eight economists from prestigious universities-who decide if the US is "Technically" in recession.
Or, as Rick Santelli put it Thursday morning, the two-quarters-of-negative-growth definition may not be the "Technical" definition, but it is a recession "In the eyes of investors who trade in markets." That is, for people in the real world who buy and sell things, the US is either in recession or something very close to it.
The Federal reserve and the administration are tenaciously clinging for dear life to the job numbers as evidence that the economy is doing too well to be called a recession.
Will the NBER's little board of economists conclude the US was "Technically" in recession in mid 2022 when it issues its opinion months from now? It doesn't really matter when it comes to making a judgment about the state of the economy right now.
https://mises.org/wire/gdp-shrinks-again-biden-quibbles-over-definition-recession
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