By CASEY HARPER | THE CENTER SQUARE
U.S. gross domestic product decreased by 0.9% in the second quarter of 2022, according to new data from Bureau of Economic Analysis, signaling the start of an economic recession in the U.S.
“The decrease in real GDP reflected decreases in private inventory investment, residential fixed investment, federal government spending, state and local government spending, and nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by increases in exports and personal consumption expenditures…” the BEA said Thursday.
Economists have warned for months that a second consecutive quarter of negative GDP growth would officially signal the U.S. has entered a recession. GDP also shrank in the first quarter of 2022, by 1.6%.
In anticipation of these numbers, the White House in recent days has insisted there is no recession, questioning the standard definition of two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.
“As Secretary [Janet] Yellen said on Sunday, two negative quarters of GDP growth is not the technical definition of recession,” Brian Deese, Biden’s director of National Economic Council, told reporters this week. “It’s not the definition that economists have traditionally relied on.”
Critics blasted the Biden administration, arguing it was reframing the data for political purposes.
“Question: Out of the past 10 times the U.S. economy has experienced two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, how many times was a recession officially declared?” Michael Strain, director of Economic Policy Studies and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote on Twitter. “Answer: 10.”
Notably, Google’s dictionary in conjunction with Oxford Languages defines recession as “a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters.”
Despite pushback from critics, the White House has continued to argue the definition of recession.
“But from the President’s perspective, putting that technical question aside, the most important question economically is whether working people and middle-class families have more breathing room, they have more job opportunities, their wages are growing up — going up in a — in a stable way, and they’re able to afford the important things in their lives…” he added.
But 41-year high inflation has surpassed wage growth.
Those concerns have been top of mind for Americans as gas prices hit record highs last month before dipping down, though gas prices still are at levels much higher than the same time last year.
Meanwhile, the latest federal inflation data showed consumer prices rose 9.1% in the previous twelve months while the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ producer price index rose 11.3% in the same time.
Casey Harper is a Senior Reporter for the Washington, D.C. Bureau. He previously worked for The Daily Caller, The Hill, and Sinclair Broadcast Group. A graduate of Hillsdale College, Casey’s work has also appeared in Fox News, Fox Business, and USA Today.
OK… once more for the people in the cheap seats.
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It is only a recession when a Republican is President.
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I do not understand why anyone is surprised by the attempts on the pResident Biden administration to re-define recession. This was expected by anyone with half a functioning brain cell.
Update your New speak dictionary
Redefining language and meaning is part of the playbook.
It is standard communist/socialist SOP.
Exactly what I was thinking too, Bosk.
Not a surprise as leftists have redefined a lot words lately such as recession, woman, racist, and the list goes on and on. Whatever they want to think becomes reality for them and mainstream media. Remember in the leftist’s world feeling trump reality.
For the party of Biden, economics is an incredibly difficult topic to understand, it’s a wee bit more complicated than the simple biological fact that males have a penis and women have vaginas……..
… at birth.
Who might guess that the son of a used car salesman might be FOS?
Not just a recession, but I’m afraid we’ve reached the real doom and gloom of Stagflation. A stagnant economy with inflation, the worst of the worst. Thankyou Joe!
And if congress allows this new massive spending bill to go through, there will be no hope at this point for a soft-landing recession–it will be a crash into a mountain side… Of course, that is globalist cabal’s intent–as they pull the strings of their installed ‘President’…
Obama once quipped, “Never underestimate Joe’s ability to fuxx things up.” In very short order Biden has done everything possible to destroy the US economy. We have record inflation- unlike Japan and China. Japan and China have inflation in the 2 percent range. These are good countries to compare to since the USA, China, and Japan have the biggest, gross domestic product(s)- or GDP- measured globally.
We have energy prices that are the highest ever since Biden decided to declare war on the oil and gas industry. Those prices are going to stay high until there is a new, competent, president. Big Oil will not undertake massive risk on new projects knowing the Biden administration wants the industry to fail.
What is especially troubling is what a corrupt, lying dirt bag Biden has proven himself to be. When it is clear he caused a recession, he denies it, and now wants hundreds of billions in additional, deficit spending as well as new taxes on Americans.
Anyone with a brain knows in a time of economic contraction raising taxes only makes matters worse.
But Biden does not care. He is demonstrably corrupt- having taken millions and millions from foreign interests that hate the USA (China) through his dirt bag son.
It isn’t biden doing this–he can’t even ties his shoes anymore–if he could remember where he put them… He (and key others) are completely aligned with the globalist reset agenda. That is what is unfolding.
Mr. Rast any comments?
Lucinda….?
A recession is when your neighbor is out of a job, a depression is when you are out of a job. This would be the first recession where new jobs and employment are increasing while the Fed is raising rates. Some of the recent inflation is transitory and some is baked in forever, so everyone can claim they are right. Gas has dropped a dollar a gallon in the last two weeks, but will not likely drop to where it was before.
Where in the hell you buy gas? It dropped a dollar??? You’re just making this up as you go to save face huh Frank?
I’m old enough to have lived through the economic abortion of Jimmy Carter. I hoped to never see something like that again. Sadly, I did. Grandpa is doing his best to drag us into another depression.
Things are much, much worse worldwide than is covered in American press.
The recession under Carter started with too much easy money under Ford, then Carter did not have the guts to slam the inflation with higher rates and spending cuts. I recall how unpopular Reagan was his first two years, tax cuts and deficit spending paid off when Clinton was President as a business friendly Democrat. The current downward spiral started with Bush II spending borrowed money to start the Iraq war and expand the war in Afghanistan, the spending and easy money has not stopped since. Blaming Biden is convenient and does nothing to solve the problem.
Kind of like blaming Trump for everything. Don’t you guys ever get tired of being hypocrites? Also “business friendly democrat”?? I think you meant to say “spendocrat” as in there has never been a tax dollar that democrats wouldn’t waste on BS spending. Furthermore your hero Obama had 8 years to stop the war. He had 8 years to cut spending. He crippled the country with his trillion dollar “stimulus” plan and doubled down by increasing costs across the board with “Obama-care”. Your smoking dangerous amounts of copium Frank.
Ummm, Frank?
When Carter took office, inflation numbers were rated at %5.2 and reached as high as %14.8 during his term in March of 1980.
This was all upon him.
Reagan had nothing to do with it, but was elected to fix it, as well as other National problems, which he did.
Ford, Clinton, nor Bushes I and II had nothing to do with it.
You do nothing but deflect responsibility from where it should be contained, which is within Carter himself.
And no, blaming Biden does not solve the problem, perse’, but the final responsibility still lies within his wheelhouse, and his actions, which are even more abysmal resultant unto this great Nation than Carters’ were.
We are in a recession and will be lucky if it doesn’t end up a depression due to the reckless spending in D.C. and manipulation by the Federal Reserve. The Fake News tells you inflation is at 9.1% which is a complete lie. The real number is 18% and rising. They strong armed Senator Manchin in supporting their next payoff to their lobbyists and corporate sponsors to the tune of 800 Billion Dollars which could be passed very soon as the new Build Back Better bill. This will flood more money into an already saturated market causing hyperinflation and placing a dagger in the heart of our reeling economy. Both of Alaska’s Senators are picking their noses instead of calling for impeachment of Biden and his criminal cohorts. That tells you all you need to know about the Uniparty, both Dems and Republicans. Let the investigations begin and send the criminals to prison!
Recessions. What made mother-in-law apts where grandma and grandpa lives while the next generation lives in main area all under the
same roof and all contributing to house expences, and everyone stays rich.
Reflect for a moment that the speech writers instructing Biden to say there is no recession, are the same ones that had him proclaim that while rising gas prices were something POTUS had absolutely no power to slow or stop, then prompt him to crow and take credit for when gas prices fall a few cents!
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