Name: U.S. Recession Watch: Three Reasons Why It’s Not Off the Table
Uploaded: 2023-09-11T18:14:00Z
Duration: 4 min 6 s
Description: The U.S. economy has been strong so far in 2023, with jobs growth continuing, GDP rising and inflation slowing. But several cracks in the economic armor have started to appear. WSJ’s Dion Rabouin explains. Photo illustration: Noah Friedman/Patrick Semansky/AP

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The U.S. economy has been strong so far in 2023, with jobs growth continuing, GDP rising and inflation slowing. But several cracks in the economic armor have started to appear. WSJ’s Dion Rabouin explains. Photo illustration: Noah Friedman/Patrick Semansky/AP

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Thanks to strong, but not too strong data on inflation, retail sales, and economic growth in recent months, the US has been enjoying what I like to call "Soft Landing Summer." But some analysts are saying that the recession that most of Wall Street predicted would hit this year hasn't been avoided. It's just been delayed. And there are three big reasons why, first, some major and unexpected government stimulus programs that have held up the economy are going away. Second, those big piles of pandemic savings have been largely exhausted for lower income households. And third, the data we've been seeing this summer could mean the Fed has more work to do. Let's get into it. Coming into 2023, it looked like there wouldn't be any new stimulus coming out of Washington because Republicans and Democrats had split control of Congress. That usually means nothing gets done but because inflation was so high, government programs automatically made so-called cost of living adjustments, which meant that a lot more money was going out to Americans receiving government transfers. The record setting 8.7% increase in social security benefits made headlines, but that wasn't the only program to get a major increase in funds. SNAP benefits for food programs, retirement payments from federal and state programs, and the pay for government contractors also went up substantially because these automatic increases. That has meant a lot more money flowing through the economy in 2023. And because inflation has slowed down so much this year, those cost increases won't be repeated in 2024. Ed Clissold, the Chief US strategist at Ned Davis Research also points out that the effects of the CHIPS Act and infrastructure bills that pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy are now being felt. 2024 is an election year and with inflation still a major talking point, Ed doesn't expect to see a repeat of those programs next year either. Many of the lower income people who rely on government programs have also exhausted much or all of the pandemic savings they built up over the past few years, the amount of savings folks had put away from government stimulus checks, enhanced unemployment and just not being able to go out and spend is much lower. Brian Rose, senior US Economist at UBS Global Wealth Management says the US personal savings rate is unsustainably low. The saving rate has dropped not just below the record levels we saw during the pandemic but even below its average over the past 10 years. Moody's Chief Economist, Mark Zandi tells me that new data show Americans at lower income tiers are having more trouble paying for household expenses than at the beginning of the year. And more Americans across the board are having to find irregular income sources to meet their spending needs. The US economy is built on consumers buying and that's likely to slow down if Americans have spent down their savings. We're also seeing big increases in American's credit card balances and in credit card delinquencies. Those two things happening together is not great. Last but not least, there's the Fed, chair Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve have already raised US interest rates to the highest in more than 20 years. But with the Fed determined to get inflation back down to its 2% target and recent US GDP numbers showing unexpected growth, the Fed may have to keep raising interest rates, that would put even more pressure on US companies, especially small businesses which are the economy's driving force. Small business optimism has been below its nearly 50-year average for 19 straight months making things even tougher for small companies, the Fed's latest survey shows banks have tightened their standards for making loans to levels that have consistently signaled a recession for the past 50 years. So here's the big picture, in 2023, inflation has slowed down and the US economy has held strong. But both of those things could be unraveling, if inflation holds at its current levels and consumer and business spending keep falling, that recession everyone predicted in 2023 could just materialize in 2024.