Gross domestic product, or GDP, is down 0.9% from the same time last year in the U.S. This is the second straight quarter of GDP decline, which usually spells out a recession.
So is it a recession? Well, the White House doesn’t want you to think so. They’d like us to take a more “holistic look at the data.”
Officially, the National Bureau of Economic Research is the body that declares recessions and expansions and that agency won’t be publishing any declarations any time soon.
The markets expected this news and didn’t move much as a result. So maybe this is semantics and doesn’t much matter. But does it matter to you? If the average family is hurting, would it feel better to know that it is a sign of the times? Is the hesitance to use the word political maneuvering in an election year?
As CNBC points out, “this may not be enough to change public perception… A [recent poll] indicated that 65% of registered voters, including 78% of Republicans, think the economy already is in a recession.”
