THE SPIN: 59% of Americans wrongly think the U.S. is in a recession, report finds.
The Reality: US might avoid a recession, but it’s a different story for ordinary Americans.
With the latest weak jobs report, increasing stock-market volatility and concerns that the Fed may be behind the curve in lowering rates, there has been renewed discussion of the R-word: recession. While the GDP may be in positive territory, middle/working class Americans who have been struggling financially for multiple years now feel as though they have already been experiencing a recession.
There’s a good reason for this — many Americans are in a personal recession.
Since the two quarters of negative GDP that we saw at the beginning of 2022, massive government spending (including nearly $2 trillion in yearly real deficits) and consumer spending has kept the GDP in positive growth territory. But the propping up of the economy at face value has come at a real cost for Americans.
For many households, this has caused a personal recession, where their own financial situations have been decimated while trying to keep up with the increased cost of living under the Biden-Harris administration.
We’ve been in a jobs recession for almost four years, with full-time work and labor participation still below pre-lockdown rates.