President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he does not expect the United States will enter a recession this year or next, showing his most confident prediction on the fate of an economy amid recession concerns.
In an interview with PBS’s The NewsHour, Biden was asked if he expected a recession to hit this year, he answered: “No, or next year. From the moment I got elected, how many of the experts are saying within the next six months there’s gonna be recession?”
While Biden has admitted the possibility of a recession, he told reporters earlier this week that the likelihood of a downturn was very low.
Months before the U.S. Federal Reserve finally hiked interest rates to combat decades-long inflation, economists began sounding the alarm about the possibility of a recession.
After inflation hit a 40-year high last summer and official data indicated the U.S. economy could be going into a recession, the economic reports in recent months have turned in the president’s favor.
Despite layoffs in the technology industry and interest-rate-sensitive industries like housing and finance, last week’s strong job data dampened market expectations that the U.S. central bank would soon pause its monetary policy tightening cycle.