The recession that wasn't
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 January 2024
⏱️ 23 minutes
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Summary
It’s a new year and the economic forecast for 2024 is looking strong – but that doesn’t quite align with how many Americans feel. What does that mean for the president heading into an election year?
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After years of historic inflation, price hikes are finally getting back under control and wages are catching up. Unemployment is low. The looming recession that was threatened hasn’t materialized, and the Fed has signaled it’s done raising interest rates — and it might even lower them.
But for many Americans, things still don’t feel great. Rent, groceries, and other basic necessities still haven’t fallen back to pre-pandemic prices, and consumer confidence doesn’t match the sunny economic outlook for 2024. Washington Post economics reporter Rachel Siegel breaks down how we got to this place of mismatched feelings and indicators, and what it could mean in this election year.
Today’s show was produced by Ariel Plotnick with help from Emma Talkoff. It was mixed by Rennie Svirnovskiy. It was edited by Maggie Penman.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Okay, Rachel, it's a new year. |
| 0:04.0 | 2024 has just begun. |
| 0:06.0 | So it's very natural for all of us to be looking to the year ahead. |
| 0:10.0 | For you, as you look to the year ahead, |
| 0:12.0 | how is the economy doing? |
| 0:14.8 | What foot are we starting on? |
| 0:16.4 | Well, the economy of 2023 is actually going to tell us a lot about the economy of |
| 0:21.0 | 2024, improbably, |
| 0:24.0 | remarkably somehow it's a much better picture |
| 0:26.8 | than just about anyone could have expected |
| 0:29.7 | going into the new year last year |
| 0:31.3 | or even just a couple of months ago. |
| 0:36.2 | Rachel Siegel reports on the economy for the post. |
| 0:39.3 | She's been on the show before to talk about out-of-control inflation and fears of a coming recession. |
| 0:45.0 | Now, Rachel has some good news. |
| 0:48.0 | If you look at a bunch of different indicators, the economy looks strong. |
| 0:52.0 | It's inflation, it's the job market. indicators, the economy looks strong. |
| 0:53.2 | It's inflation, it's the job market, it's overall growth, |
| 0:57.2 | and it's the way people are spending. |
| 0:58.8 | This whole picture put together |
| 1:00.5 | makes the economy look really strong on paper and much stronger than anyone could have expected. |
| 1:06.0 | And yet many Americans aren't feeling that way about the economy. |
... |
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