Economists, CEOs, and investment banks have warned for over a year now that the U.S. economy is headed for disaster, offering predictions ranging from doomsday scenarios like an economic “hurricane”—or even another “variant of a Great Depression”—to much milder, more “garden variety” outcomes.
But so far, despite persistently elevated inflation, rising interest rates, and slowing consumer spending, a true recession has yet to appear. In December, the U.S. economy added 233,000 jobs, pushing the unemployment rate to pre-pandemic lows of 3.5%. Moody Analytics’ chief economist Mark Zandi said on Sunday that he believes the strong jobs report is evidence that a recession may not be so “inevitable” after all.
