Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen: 'I don't think recession is inevitable'

• Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday she doesn't think a recession is inevitable.
• Yellen partly blamed inflation on the war in Ukraine.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Sunday she doesn't think a recession is "inevitable" but thinks inflation is "unacceptably high."

"I expect the economy to slow, it's been growing at a very rapid rate as the economy — as the labor market has recovered and we have reached full employment, it's natural now that we expect to transition to steady and stable growth. But I don't think recession is at all inevitable," Yellen said during an interview with ABC's "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos.

Yellen added that inflation was still "unacceptably high" and blamed it partly on the ongoing war in Ukraine.

"Part of the reason is Russia's war on Ukraine has boosted energy and food prices in the United States and globally. It's important to recognize that the United States is certainly not the only advanced economy suffering from high inflation. We see it in the UK, we see it in France, Germany, Italy, and the causes of it are global, not local," she said.

According to a new survey released Friday, a majority of global CEOs expect a recession will arrive by the end of 2023. Many pointed to inflation, reeling energy markets, and geopolitical conflicts as looming economic threats, Insider's Phil Rosen previously reported.

Last week, former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summer suggested that "it's more than likely" the country will grapple with a recession "within the next two years."

"I think when inflation is as high as it is right now, and unemployment is as low as it is right now, it's almost always been followed within two years" by a recession, Summers said.