We Are In A Soft Recession Right Now

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That is Stephen Moore, on June 27, 2022. He further notes: “Moore pointed to the GDP data on Monday, noting that the “first six months of the year have been negative for growth.” Here are the data around that time.

Figure 1: Nonfarm Payroll employment incorporating preliminary benchmark (dark blue), civilian employment (orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding transfers in Ch.2017$ (green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2017$ (black), consumption in Ch.2017$ (light blue), and monthly GDP in Ch.2017$ (pink), GDP (blue bars), all log normalized to 2021M11=0. Light gray indicates a recession as hypothesized by Stephen Moore, and by Steven Kopits. Source: BLS via FRED, BLS preliminary benchmark, Federal Reserve, BEA 2023Q2 third release incorporating comprehensive revisions, S&P Global/IHS Markit (nee Macroeconomic Advisers, IHS Markit) (10/2/2023 release), and author’s calculations.

The NBER BCDC’s key indicators are employment and personal income ex-transfers. The former continues to grow during the entire 2022H1 period.

I am dubious that a recession occurred in 2022H1. Note that GDO and GDP+ indicate a smaller decline (if any) for the 2022H1 period.


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