President Joe Biden and members of his administration are eschewing the word “recession,” despite claims by Republican politicians and some economists that the United States already meets that definition.
In remarks at the White House on Thursday, Biden said Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and many other economists and bankers believe the country is not in a recession.
He then went on to mention the investments in jobs and high technology during his administration and concluded by saying: “That doesn’t sound like a recession to me.”
Earlier this Thursday, the Commerce Department released figures showing that the US economy shrank for the second consecutive quarter, meeting a technical definition of a recession.
Many Republicans in Congress immediately reacted to the economic data to declare that the country is in a recession.
“The Democrats threw us into a recession,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, a member of the Senate’s joint economic committee.
“America is now in a recession thanks to irresponsible spending by Democrats,” said Jeff Duncan, a congressman from South Carolina and a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
The US economy contracted 0.9% in the second quarter and 1.6% in the first, but despite this many economists are not sure that there is a recession because the labor sector added 2.7 million jobs during the first half of 2022 and unemployment fell to 3.6%, close to the lows of 50 years ago.
President Biden and his chief financial officer, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, were scheduled to make further comments Thursday afternoon about the nation’s economy.
[Informe de Steve Herman, VOA]
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