On 7/26/2022, during press conference, White House economic adviser Brian Deese said that while U.S. inflation is hurting Americans in their wallets, at least they’re not facing famine like some other countries. During the White House press briefing, the National Economic Council director argued that the U.S. is not on the brink of a recession and that the state of the economy, which hit a whopping 9.1% inflation rate in June, could be a lot worse than it is currently. “I think that our economy is more resilient to the types of challenges that we face,” Deese said. “For example, with respect to food, we’re a net exporter of agricultural commodities. And obviously, the high prices are hitting Americans very hard, but in a way that is different from some places that are facing famine, for example.”
Deese reiterated that “two negative quarters of GDP growth is not the technical definition of recession. It’s not the definition that economists have traditionally relied on.” “There is an organization called the National Bureau of Economic Research, and what they do is they look at a broad range of data and deciding whether or not a recession has occurred,” he said. “That is the process that economists and administrations have used for years and decades to identify when a recession has occurred.”
Facing a potentially grim report this week on the economy’s overall health, President Joe Biden wants to convince a skeptical public that the U.S. is not, in fact, heading into a recession. The Commerce Department on Thursday will release new gross domestic product figures. Top forecasts such as the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow are predicting that the figure will be negative for the second straight quarter — an informal signal that the country is stuck in a downturn. The White House is disputing that benchmark, but it will likely otherwise prove political chum for Republicans in an election year. “Two negative quarters of GDP growth is not the technical definition of recession,” National Economic adviser Brian Deese insisted during White House press briefing. He added that “the most important question economically is, whether working people, and middle class families, have more breathing room.”
Deese and other members of the Biden administration are pre-emptively telling voters not to judge the economy by GDP or inflation alone. They say people should look at job gains, industrial output and other measures that point toward continued growth, even as Americans are downbeat in polls on the economy and Biden. Asked how much weight the administration puts into Americans’ general feeling about their economic well-being as opposed to the arguments over the definition of a recession, Deese said: “Our focus is on trying to improve economic circumstances in this country. That’s what we are focused on.”
Deese shrugged of a question about why President Joe Biden’s focus is on the definition of “recession,” when asked to explain Consumer Confidence declined for the third straight month in June, Deese said that the cause of the dip in consumer confidence was, “a divergence in the economy right now between sentiment and spending behavior.”
Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked Biden economic advisor Brian Deese, “last year Biden’s advisors were telling us inflation is temporary, that’s not true. Now Biden’s advisors are saying it not going to be a recession. Are you sure?”
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Last year telling us inflation temporary, that’s not true. Now saying not recession. Are you sure?