The White House is pointing out that the US isn't really in a recession [View all]

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...Should the Thursday report show output shrinking again, debate around the economy's health will quickly intensify. The rule-of-thumb definition of a downturn has long been back-to-back quarters of negative GDP. The coming data release could very well show just that, but the White House is already explaining why defining a recession requires much more nuance.

For one, the National Bureau of Economic Research has much more stringent criteria for deciding when a recession starts, members of the White House Council of Economic Advisors wrote in a Thursday blog post. The organization — which serves as the semi-official authority for deciding when business cycles start and end — defines a recession as "a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months." It also considers factors such as employment, consumer spending, and industrial production.

That looser definition makes it less likely the US is actually in an economic slump, the team said. The variables the NBER tracks have shown "strong growth" since the start of the pandemic and continued to improve through the first half of 2022. The unemployment rate remains a historically low 3.6%, and monthly job creation in the second quarter handily surpassed the pre-pandemic trend...

https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-biden-recession-gdp-economic-report-2022-7


Expect some gloom and doom recession talk in the media. They will fail to see the big picture.