A widely predicted recession never showed up. Now, economists are assessing what the unexpected resilience tells us about the future.
The recession America was expecting never showed up.
Many economists spent early 2023 predicting a painful downturn, a view so widely held that some commentators started to treat it as a given. Inflation had spiked to the highest level in decades, and a range of forecasters thought that it would take a drop in demand and a prolonged jump in unemployment to wrestle it down.
Instead, the economy grew 3.1 percent last year, up from less than 1 percent in 2022 and faster than the average for the five years leading up to the pandemic. Inflation has retreated substantially. Unemployment remains at historic lows, and consumers continue to spend even with Federal Reserve interest rates at a 22-year high.
The divide between doomsday predictions and the heyday reality is forcing a reckoning on Wall Street and in academia. Why did economists get so much wrong, and what can policymakers learn from those mistakes as they try to anticipate what might come next?
Pay no mind to the widespread layoffs and skyrocketing prices.
What’s your source?
Recent December data shows unemployment rate at 3.7% with 199,000 added jobs:
Nonfarm payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 199,000 for the month, slightly better than the 190,000 Dow Jones estimate and ahead of the unrevised October gain of 150,000, the Labor Department reported Friday. The numbers were boosted by sizeable gains in government hiring as well as workers returning from strikes in the auto and entertainment industries.
The unemployment rate declined to 3.7%, compared with the forecast for 3.9%, as the labor force participation rate edged higher to 62.8%. A more encompassing unemployment rate that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time positions for economic reasons fell to 7%, a decline of 0.2 percentage point.
Inflation being higher than wages?
As one particular youtube Economist puts it: nobody can predict the future, least of all economists.
The best they can ever do is look at the data in front of them and say, “well, in the past we’ve seen this sort of situation lead to X, so we think that we’re likely to see X again in the near future.” On top of that much of what they are doing is probability based best guesses. So, they may be looking at economic data and say, “well, we think it’s a 65% chance of X.” And then “news” organizations will report that as “Economists think X will happen, and here’s how it’s going to cause DOOOOOOOOM!” Of course, those numbers assume they have good data, which is not always the case.That said, it’s probably better to bet with macroeconomists than against them. They may get it wrong, but they probably get it right more often. Just don’t bet the entire farm on what they say. 'Cause, you know, they do get it wrong from time to time.
youtube Economist
holy shit lmao
Young people - oh my god old people believe everything they read on Facebook!
Also young people - well this guy on YT says he’s an expert so it must be true
This is why I follow the old saying: “Believe everything you read in the newspapers.”
It’s because the field of economics is just bullshit
When you study economics you literally spend 0 hours learning how to predict macroeconomic outcomes such as inflation/gdp growth. The reason is that these systems are too complex to predict well, except in the very short run. Yet policymakers continue to ask economists to make long-run predictions, and many continue to comply.
I personally was asked to be a member of an expert committee for my country’s central bank. For any prediction my truthful answer was: I don’t know, so they kicked me out.
what kinds of stuff did they want you to predict?
Give it 2 more months, and it should be shot.
You CANNOT have as-much missing-supply-chain as we now have, and remain viable, endlessly.
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We’re just saving up for an even better recession.
imo there won’t be a recession until economists stop predicting one. As soon as they start talking about a boom then you should get ready.
