Recession? They'll Tell Us That It’s Misinformation

President Joe Biden reacts to questions from the press about how he is feeling, while participating virtually in a meeting with his economic team in the South Court Auditorium of the White House campus in Washington, D.C., on July 22, 2022. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Commentary

Last week, this space speculated that the next recession may never be called what it is. Government agencies rely entirely on the National Bureau for Economic Research to call it either way. In October 2020, the NBER posted a clarification that it doesn’t accept the textbook definition of two successive quarters of output decline, but instead deploys a more holistic view.