![Global business columnist and associate editor at the Financial Times Rana Foroohar spoke about the economy on CNN [Screenshot CNN]](https://images.dailycaller.com/image/width=960,height=411,fit=cover,f=auto/https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screen-Shot-2022-07-26-at-3.47.40-PM-e1658865035746.png "Global business columnist and associate editor at the Financial Times Rana Foroohar spoke about the economy on CNN [Screenshot CNN]")
Global business columnist and associate editor at the Financial Times Rana Foroohar said Tuesday on CNN that the “technical” definition of a recession doesn’t matter because Americans are feeling the pain in their pocketbooks.
Host Matt Egan was discussing record-high inflation and the anticipated GDP report which is “expected to show the cost of living is so high,” amid fears that the U.S. is in a recession. The Biden administration has seemingly attempted to redefine what constitutes a “recession” ahead of the report, sparking massive backlash.
Foroohar touched on the definition saga, saying words don’t matter as much as the pain Americans are feeling.
“Well, look, people feel like they’re in a recession whether they are or not. I mean, there’s a lot of debate about technical recession, at the end of the day, Ana, you and I know it’s about how you feel,” Foroohar said. “Do you have money in your wallet? Are you buttoning up your pocketbook? And people clearly are. We’ve all felt the cost increases at the grocery store, at the pump — although gas prices have gone down a little bit, that’s one silver lining. But, folks are not feeling good. They are feeling in a pinch right now.”
The White House Council of Economic Advisers said on July 21 that two consecutive quarters of failing GDP is not indicative of a recession and that it is “unlikely that the decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year — even if followed by another GDP decline in the second quarter — indicates a recession.” (RELATED: Food Bank Runs Out Of Food In 90 Minutes As Inflation Worsens)
Two consecutive quarters of falling GDP has typically been used to indicate a recession, though the National Bureau of Economic Research uses several other factors as well to determine whether the U.S. is in a recession.
The Biden administration has since doubled down on redefining a recession, with White House Director of the National Economic Council Brian Deese saying that “in terms of the technical definition” the economy is not indicative of a “recession.”
Despite the administration’s attempt to redefine a recession, businesses are already seeing slower business and profit declines.
“We’ve seen a definite slowdown in orders in the last few months,” Guy Berkebile, owner of a sealant adhesives company in Pennsylvania told the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF). Berkebile said the decline in orders is because “inflation has taken such a bite out of folks’ take home pay that there’s less demand for our products in the market.”
Job Creators Network President and CEO Alfredo Ortiz told the DCNF that “we are in a recession, even if the government officially hasn’t announced it yet.”
“Small businesses are on the front lines of our economy so they are the first to know when our economy moves in a certain direction.”
Daily business operations have also gone up, forcing business owners to raise prices, owner of Doo-Dah Diner in Wichita, Kansas, Timirie Shibley, told the DCNF.
“The price we pay for a case of eggs (15 dozen), for example, has gone from $17 to $61, and for a restaurant that goes through 6,500 eggs a week, that’s not at all insignificant,” Shibley said.