- Joe Biden played down the chances of the US suffering a recession Tuesday.
- "It's been 'coming' for 11 months, well guess what? I don't think it is going to come," he told donors.
Joe Biden said Tuesday that he's expecting the economy to avoid a recession, but much of Wall Street isn't so optimistic.
Forecasters have told Americans that a slump has "been coming for 11 months," the US President told donors at a Maryland fundraiser, according to Bloomberg.
"Well guess what? I don't think it is going to come," he added.
Biden pointed to slowing inflation and the red-hot labor market, which added a better-than-expected 339,000 jobs last month, as evidence that there won't be a recession in the US.
But other barometers of economic health have given analysts more cause for concern, with GDP growth dramatically slowing to just 1.1% last quarter.
Several of the US's top banks disagree with Biden.
JPMorgan strategists said last week that there's just a 23% that the US manages to avoid a recession, warning investors to brace for a "boil the frog" scenario where the lagging impact of the Federal Reserve's aggressive interest-rate hikes crushes the economy.
Bank of America's top economist Michael Gapen also said earlier this month that even if the Fed can avoid a so-called "hard landing" as it battles to tame inflation, the US will have fallen into a mild recession by the end of 2023.
Well-trusted market indicators are also warning that the economy could slump within months.
The yield curve – a graph depicting the spread between long- and short-dated Treasury bonds that has preceded every recession since 1969 – has been inverted since July 2022, signaling a looming downturn.
But not all of the US's top investment banks believe a recession is inevitable, with some aligning more closely with Biden's view.
Goldman Sachs lowered its odds of a recession hitting the US from 35% to 25% on June 6, saying that Congress's debt-ceiling deal and the end of the regional banking crisis had led to its economists taking an improved outlook.
That could provide some solace for Biden – who's battling to show voters that his presidency has boosted the American economy, with an election slated to take place in November next year.
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