The Commerce Department revised the GDP numbers for the second quarter by +.3%, suggesting the economic contraction was slightly better than initially measured.
But that means the economy still shrank by 0.6% and confirms that we are in a recession.
Here’s more via Fox Business:
The U.S. economy shrank at slightly slower pace in the second quarter than previously reported, but continued to meet the criteria for a so-called technical recession as raging inflation and higher interest rates weighed on spending.
Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the economy, shrank by 0.6% on an annualized basis in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said in its second reading of the data on Thursday. That is below the initially reported 0.9% decline.
GDP already contracted by 1.6% in the period from January to March, the worst performance since the spring of 2020, when the economy was deep in the throes of the COVID-induced recession.
Recessions are technically defined by two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth and are characterized by high unemployment, low or negative GDP growth, falling income and slowing retail sales, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which tracks downturns.
With back-to-back declines in growth, the economy meets the technical criteria for a recession, which requires a “significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months.” Still, the NBER — the semi-official arbiter — may not confirm it immediately as it typically waits up to a year to call it.
The only thing surprising about this is that Biden’s Commerce Department didn’t revise the numbers into something that looks like growth. The fact that they only edged it up a little confirms that the economy did shrink and that no matter how much the Biden White House denies it, we are in a technical recession.
I haven’t heard much talk in the news about the economy being in a recession lately. Maybe this news will reignite that discussion. But something tells me the garbage media doesn’t really want to keep harping on this because elections are coming up in a few months.