This is why the R-word has been omitted from liberal outlets such as the Associated Press, or even during a Democrat government.
On Thursday when the second quarter Gross Domestic Product was released showing a contraction for the second quarter in a row which meets the standard definition for recession, AP economics writer Paul Wiseman did his best trying to weasel its way out of labeling it as such. They published an article on recession avoidance in which they denied that there was actually a recession. The title of the story, “US economy shrinks in a second quarter raising fears about recession,” is what it did.
The story was not over, but AP continued to deny the recession.
In the United States, economic growth slowed from April to June by 0.9% per year. This raises concerns about the future of American economy. This nation might be heading for a recession.
The decline that the Commerce Department reported Thursday in the gross domestic product — the broadest gauge of the economy — followed a 1.6% annual drop from January through March. A recession can be identified by consecutive quarters in which the GDP falls.
It seems that the “informal” definition of recession has been rewritten. The AP now lists lame excuses why this isn’t a depression despite meeting the standards used throughout Republican administrations.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell and many economists have said that while the economy is showing some weakening, they doubt it’s in recession.Most of these points are pointing to an incredibly strong labor market that has 11 million open jobs with a 3.6% unemployment rate. These numbers suggest that there is no recession, even if it does happen.
“The back-to-back contraction of GDP will feed the debate about whether the U.S. is in, or soon headed for, a recession,” said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. “The fact that the economy created 2.7 million payrolls in the first half of the year would seem to argue against an official recession call for now.”
…Many economists don’t consider the recession to be occurring despite the fact that there was a quarter in which GDP fell for the second consecutive quarter. The definition of recession that is most widely accepted is the one determined by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a group of economists whose Business Cycle Dating Committee defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months.”
The committee assesses a range of factors before publicly declaring the death of an economic expansion and the birth of a recession — and it often does so well after the fact.
It is no wonder that polls have shown little faith in media, even though the same media has gone to absurd lengths like AP to show why what was universally thought to be a recession up until now isn’t necessarily a recession.
On Wednesday, Wiseman began an explainer: “The U.S. economy is caught in an awkward, painful place. It’s also confusing. This is a difficult and awkward place for Democrats right now, as well their media enablers.
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