US President Joe Biden said Monday that he does not expect his country’s economy to enter a recession, days after the release of US GDP data for the second quarter.
“We will not go into a recession, in my opinion,” Biden told reporters, after first-quarter figures showed a contraction in GDP. Citing the strength of the labor market, the president said: “We will go from this rapid growth to sustained growth.”
Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Sunday that the US economy was “slowing” but said the data did not herald a recession.
“I’m not saying that we will definitively avoid a recession, but I think there is a way to maintain the strength of the labor market and lower inflation,” he said.
GDP growth in the United States in the second quarter will be known on Thursday and a slight increase is expected, after a negative first quarter (a contraction of 1.6% in annual projection, the preferred measure in the country, which projects growth to 12 months under the conditions at the time of the study).
If a contraction were to occur, the US would technically be in a recession, posting two quarters in negative territory.
But for Yellen, a recession “is a generalized contraction of the economy. And even if (the GDP for the second quarter shows figures) negative, we will not be in a recession today,” she insisted.
