Does the government announce stuff like that? I feel like we had a Pandemic announcement but maybe we didn’t. I was young in the 2008 crash so I have no idea how this stuff works. Sounds like its coming but no administration wants to admit its coming or that its here.
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You expect the Trump Administration to tell you the truth?
Doubt it. It would cause a panic and a run on the banks. People would flood to withdraw their savings and that would cause more chaos. The banks don’t have anywhere near the cash in hand to pay out all the accounts they hold.
The domino effect would be a castrosphy.
Yes, and we actually have a department that is tasked with deciding when one started approximately and when it has ended.
The government just puts out the data. For defining when recessions start and end most economists go along with the National Bureau of Economic Research, which is a private organization.
NBER decides, a private non-profit composed of 8 economists: https://www.axios.com/2025/03/12/what-is-recession-2025-trump
I can’t tell how insulated this group is from Trump shenanigans, but the metrics seem broad enough that the business world would likely back up any call they made or were going to make.
No, they would probably not call a press conference and “announce” a recession.
But they do not have to. Both the government and independent organizations track economic indicators, these are published publicly, and a recession is generally defined as two consecutive quarters of declining GDP. So everyone will know, there is no “hiding” it.
Two consecutive quarters of decline in the country’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
Most recessions are officially declared after they’re already over. Much of the economic data used to call a recession goes through multiple revisions, and lagging indicators are also used to help make the call. But it’s usually painfully obvious we’ve had a recession before the official call (job losses, negative GDP growth, etc.).
The government can’t detect two consecutive months of decline in GDP until some time after the second month–not all the numbers are immediately available, and they are often corrected. They can, based on preliminary figures, say it looks like a recession, but statistics take time to assemble. Often, they don’t detect it until we are already into recovery.
We’re never in a recession.
We only have periods of negative economic growth.
To announce recession, you need to go negative growth in 3 consecutive quarters …
So USA is not officially in recession
They’ll say the patient is recovering well.
Under Trump?
No. This idiot may very well end the status of the USD as the world’s reserve currency, and he would claim to have the best economy ever.
No. That would take economists who are intelligent, none of whom work for the government.
They changed the definition so that they wouldnt habe to say we’re in one.
As some have already answered, yes.
It’s not an arbitrary red button.
If the US is in the red 2 quarters, it’s a recession
That being said, as to whether or not every red politician and rich American under the sun would deny it? Yes. Absolutely.
No way in hell this administration admits anything is wrong.
Not this government
No. Nothing panics investors more than admitting were in a recession.
“the government” – yes.
“this government” – no.
They didn’t tell us we were in a recession the last time there were two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
When it happens again I suspect they would lie to us again.
The NBER (NBER.org) is the official declarator of recessions in the USA, and is part of the US government.
Keep in mind they usually announce a recession way after it started, since data may not be clear and it’s revised.
Newspapers will sorta kinda start calling it before it’s official, many times with question marks just in case 😉
The next GDP release is on April 30; if it shows that GDP decreased, and other indicators point in the same direction, we will probably start seeing the early calls
Recessions are usually measured by two quarters (6 months) of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) going down, even when it happens governments are reluctant to admit it’s a recession.
This one is going to be a little weird though, I have no doubt we’ll be in one by that definition but the GDP dropping likely to be a pointless measurement compared to the economic fallout from the stock market ect.
So no, the government won’t announce it, and it’s kind of a silly metric but that’ll be what happens.
NBER is an independent organization. They’re usually ones who make the call:
https://www.nber.org/
We went into recession in the first months of Bidens presidency. They changed the metrics required by saying employment was still high so it didn’t count.
They change what gets included in the inflation numbers to get best results.
Propaganda is constant and changing.