While the economy remains in the toilet under the administration of Joe Biden, his team is preemptively seeking to change the definition of “recession.”
The Daily Caller reports:
Economic commentators frequently use two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth as a “rule of thumb” that an economy is in a recession, according to Axios. While the economy shrank by 1.4% in the first quarter,… Biden’s economic team argued in a blog post that even if second quarter GDP growth is also negative it is still “unlikely” that that would indicate the economy is in a recession.
The National Bureau of Economic Research defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months,” and looks at everything from inflation-adjusted income, various employment statistics, consumption expenditures and industrial production. Google, however, defines the phenomenon 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.”
Dating back to the end of World War II, a recession has been declared every single time the economy experiences negative growth for two consecutive quarters, E.J. Antoni, research fellow for regional economics at the Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The White House’s blog post argued that because industrial production, employment, and spending have increased this year, two quarters of declining output should not be used to measure inflation.
Bracing for impact: Even if Thursday's GDP report shows a second consecutive quarter of negative growth, you won't hear the Biden admin using the R-word.
The Council of Economic Advisers is redefining what a recession is…🤔https://t.co/HHBYJKqP5V pic.twitter.com/gecR93vPPj
— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) July 24, 2022