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Apr 3, 2024 · Federal policymakers enacted substantial relief and recovery measures in 2020 and 2021 to support the economy and relieve hardship. These measures helped fuel an economic recovery beginning in May 2020 that made the deepest recession in the post-World War II era also the shortest.
Sep 26, 2022 · Real personal income grew at an average of 0.62% prior to the average recession, while industrial production grew slightly, by 0.05%. Meanwhile, immediately following the onset of the average recession, all six indicators declined, which ultimately persisted for the entirety of the recession.
- In the second quarter of 2021, GDP returned to its pre-pandemic level. Since the economy hit bottom in the second quarter of 2020, economic growth has surpassed consensus expectations formed at the beginning of the pandemic.
- The sharp decline in employment in spring 2020, which was largely concentrated in the services sector, has only partially reversed. Figure 2 shows the percent difference in overall employment from the peak month prior to recent economic downturns through the month where employment recovered to its previous business cycle peak.
- Millions of workers are no longer eligible for Unemployment Insurance. Over the summer of 2021 in some states, and in the first week of September 2021 in the remainder of states, enhanced UI expired.
- The number of job openings and the number of workers quitting their jobs is higher now than in the past 20 years. Despite job openings being their highest since the end of 2000 (the earliest available data), several factors are holding down employment gains.
- Economic Data
- Markets Data
- The Jobs Market
- Confidence Metrics
- Housing
- What Is The Recession Tracker Telling Us?
- How Does The NBER Define A Recession?
- What Metrics Does The NBER Consider For Recessions?
- When Was The Last Recession?
Gross Domestic Product
1. Most Recent Report:Fourth Quarter GDP +2.6% (final estimate) 2. Grade:Good The most recent GDP data shows the U.S. economy grew at an annualized rate of 2.6% in the fourth quarter of 2022. This comes on the heels of 3.2% annualized growth in the third quarter of 2022. The report sets overall 2022 U.S. economic growth at 2.6%, which makes it pretty clear that the U.S. was not in a recession in 2022. However, Bill Adams, chief economist for Comerica Bank, believes that GDP will likely slow s...
Consumer Price Index
1. Most Recent Report:February CPI +6.0% 2. Grade:Bad Inflation is the big problem on everybody’s mind right now. The recent banking crisis appears to have been brought on by the Fed’s attempts to tame inflation, posing a dilemma for the central bank: keep hiking or wait and see? “Even though realized inflation remains near 6%, future inflation expectations are much lower,” said Nancy Davis, founder of Quadratic Capital Management. “Right now, the market is fully pricing in that the Fed will...
ISM Manufacturing Index
1. Most Recent Report:February ISM Manufacturing 47.7 2. Grade:Bad In February, the ISM manufacturing indexremained below 50—negative territory—for the fourth straight month. ISM’s index is based on a survey of industrial executives, and it had remained in positive territory every month for more than two years before the current downdraft. According to Jeffrey Roach, chief economist for LPL Financial, months of contraction in this key report on U.S. manufacturing suggest that the economy is i...
The Stock Market
1. YTD Performance:+7.5% as of April 11 2. Grade:Good The stock market has been volatile in 2023 so far. In January, the S&P 500 gained around 9%, then gave up nearly all of those gains by mid March. The benchmark index has surged higher again as markets put the banking crisis in the rearview mirror. This puts the S&P 500 up around 15% from the most recent market bottom on October 12. But the index is still well below the all-time highs seen one year ago. “We look for the S&P 500 to test the...
Treasury Yield Curve
1. 2-Year / 10-Year Spread:-0.59%, as of April 11 2. Grade:Bad When short-term interest rates yield more than longer-term rates, it’s called an inverted yield curve. This is typically a tell-tale sign of an impending recession, as the market believes longer-term growth will be weak. The yield curve has been inverted since early July, and although it’s creeping back up into positive territory these days, we’re still at levels we haven’t reached since the early 1980s.
Unemployment Rate
1. Most Recent Report:February Unemployment +3.6% 2. Grade:Good From a peak of nearly 15% in April 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. unemployment rate has dropped to a much more manageable 3.6% in February. However, this significantly lower number was still higher than the 3.4% unemployment rate in January. Prior to the recent banking woes, this slight uptick indicated the Fed might continue raising interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point at their next several me...
Initial Jobless Claims
1. Most Recent Report:228,000 Initial Claims Week Ending April 1 2. Grade:Bad The initial jobless claims numbers are released on a weekly basis, and provide a look at how many people have started filing for unemployment. The April 1 report shows rising initial claims suggest more people are losing their jobs and claiming unemployment checks. Jobless claims have remained fairly steady week over week throughout most of 2023. These slight upticks and drop downs might normally be seen as a positi...
Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey
1. Most Recent Report:February JOLTS 9.93 million 2. Grade:Good With the unemployment rate remaining low, the total number of available jobsis significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels. There were roughly 7 million job openings in January 2020, compared to 9.9 million now. This isn’t necessarily good news. “The job openings, hires and quits data show that the labor market has cooled over the last year, contradicting the unemployment rate which moved lower,” said Adams.
University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Survey
1. Most Recent Report:February Consumer Confidence 67.0 2. Grade:Good Consumer sentiment ticked higher in February according to the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers. This is a positive development for an index that was once on a consistent downward trajectory following the onset of the pandemic. “The Michigan survey is highly sensitive to inflation expectations, and its improvement could be tied to better conditions for consumers in a less supply-constrained economy,” Adams said. “T...
NFIB Small Business Optimism Index
1. Most Recent Report:March NFIB 90.1 2. Grade:Bad The March National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Small Business Optimism Indexfell slightly from February’s numbers. The index remains well below the 49-year average of 98. Major takeaways from last month’s report include: 1. Business owners said job openings were still very hard to fill—that’s in line with the JOLTs data. 2. Slightly fewer businesses were able to keep raising their average selling prices. 3. Ever fewer businesses...
Housing Starts
1. Most Recent Report:February Housing Starts +9.8% 2. Grade:Neutral February saw the number of privately-owned housing starts clock in at 1,450,000, up 9.8% from January’s rate. However, it was still more than 18% below the number of new housing projects seen a year earlier. This brings to mind Cox’s earlier comments about how the Fed’s aggressive policies have severely damaged the banking industry, but haven’t helped the labor or housing markets. Again, it looks like the Fed’s tools could b...
NAHB Home Builders Index
1. Most Recent Report:March NAHB 44 2. Grade:Bad The NAHB Home Builders Index crept up two points in the month of March, from a revised figure of 42 in February to a preliminary reading of 44 now. This is the fourth month in a row that we’ve seen an increase, and it appears to have staunched a steady series of declines throughout 2022. However, the index is still down 35 points from a year earlier. Simply put, U.S. home builders are not optimistic.
The 15 data points in the Forbes Advisor recession tracker had the following grades: 1. Good:3 2. Neutral:4 3. Bad:8 As the months go on, it appears that more and more of our data points are drifting into neutral territory rather than remaining positive. This could mean the U.S. is drifting closer toward a recession as well. Keep in mind, however, ...
Despite negative economic developments from 2022 into the start of 2023, the NBER is not ready to say that the current economic expansion is over. That’s perfectly fair, especially since GDP has been on an upward trajectory for the past two quarters and employers are still adding workers. The NBER is looking for a big drop in economic activity acro...
The NBER is vague about which exact economic indicators it considers, since it wants wiggle room to determine recession calls. It typically considers items like, “real personal income less transfers (PILT), nonfarm payroll employment, real personal consumption expenditures, wholesale-retail sales adjusted for price changes, employment as measured b...
The last recession, according to the NBER, took place between February 2020 and April 2020. That means the economy was already expanding again by May 2020, thanks to some state governments loosening restrictions and unprecedented direct payments and unemployment insurance helping consumers make-do. Before that, the economy had last contracted betwe...
- Benjamin Curry
Jun 3, 2021 · 1. Prices. Change in consumer prices from a year earlier. Source: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. By The New York Times. Consumer prices rose 4.2 percent in April from a year...
Jul 7, 2022 · Recessions in the US are officially declared by a committee of eight economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). There is no hard timetable for determining recessions, but it...
