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The US Economy Didn't Get the Recession Memo

CNN Business

The American economy didn’t get the memo that it’s supposed to already be in a recession.

The brutal GDP report released on July 28, showing the economy had contracted for a second quarter in a row, led some to insist the much-feared recession had already arrived.

A customer shops in a Kroger grocery store on July 15, 2022 in Houston, Texas. U.S. retail sales rose 1.0% in June according to the Commerce Department, with consumers spending more across a range of goods including gasoline, groceries, and furniture.

The good, the bad and the unknown of the inflation news

And in some ways that makes sense: Since 1948, every period of back-to-back quarters of negative growth coincided with a recession.

But the recession-is-already-here argument has been severely undermined since that GDP report came out. A series of events in the past 10 days suggest those recession calls are, at a minimum, premature.

Yes, the economy is cooling off after last year’s gangbusters growth. But no, it does not appear to be suffering the kind of downfall that would qualify as a recession.

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