Biden Says He Doesn't Believe There's a Looming Recession — but If There Is, 'It'll Be Very Slight'

Mar. 15, 2025

Joe Biden.Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty

Despite many analysts and banks projecting a looming U.S. recession, PresidentJoe Bidensays he doesn’t believe the country is heading in that direction.

Speaking to CNN’sJake Tapperin an interview that was aired Tuesday, the president acknowledged that economic projections warning of a recession are periodic — but he doesn’t necessarily agree with the assessment.

“Every six months they say this. Every six months, they look down the next six months and say what’s going to happen,” Biden, 79, told Tapper.

He continued: “It hadn’t happened yet. It hadn’t… I don’t think there will be a recession. If it is, it’ll be a very slight recession. That is, we’ll move down slightly.”

Biden’s remarks about a recession came just one day afterJPMorgan ChaseCEOJamie Dimonwarned on Monday that a U.S. recession is likely within the next six to nine months.

While Dimon —speaking at a conference in London, according to MSNBC— said the economy was “still doing well,” he also cited uncertainty due to factors such as inflation, growing interest rates and Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Officially, the National Bureau of Economic Research declares recessions. So far, it hasn’t said the U.S. economy is in one. The Biden administration is also wary of throwing around the “R” word.

Speaking to PEOPLE in July, economist Heather Boushey, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, pointed to positive economic indicators that she says show the U.S. economy is not in recession — unemployment, for one.

“We know that having low unemployment is the first piece of economic security,” she said, adding that there are other bright spots, like “44 days of consistently falling gas prices in the United States.”

According to Boushey, “a slowdown across all our economic indicators” would signal a recession.

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“We continue to see strong gains in employment, to the tune of about 375,000 jobs on average [per month] in the last few months. We don’t typically start recessions with that kind of robust job gain,” she told PEOPLE. “It would be highly unusual for the whole economy to be experiencing a downturn while adding so many jobs, month after month.”

In July, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she noted a “significant slowdown in growth,” but not a “broad-based weakening of the economy.”

“There is an organization called the National Bureau of Economic Research that looks at a broad range of data in deciding whether or not there is a recession,” Yellen said in an appearance on NBC’sMeet the Press with Chuck Todd. “And most of the data that they look at right now continues to be strong. I would be amazed if they would declare this period to be a recession, even if it happens to have two quarters of negative growth.”

“We have a very strong labor market,” she added. “When you are creating almost 400,000 jobs a month, that is not a recession.”

source: people.com