Politics

Biden Promised To Pull The US Out Of Recession In 2020. Where Is He Now?

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Brianna Lyman News and Commentary Writer
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President Joe Biden promised in 2020 to pull the U.S. out of a recession, leading some to wonder where he is as Thursday’s GDP report indicates the U.S. could be heading toward a recession.

U.S. real GDP decreased at an annual rate of 0.9% in the second quarter of 2022, data released Thursday from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) shows. While it is not officially considered a recession, many are sounding the alarm that the U.S. is in, or headed toward one.

But Biden promised in 2020 that he would rescue the economy from a recession.

“I helped pull this country out of a recession before — and, as president, I’ll do it again,” Biden tweeted on October 11, 2020.

While the National Bureau of Economic Research uses several factors to determine whether the U.S. is in a recession, economist Julius Shiskin wrote in 1974 that two consecutive quarters of declining GDP is a good rule of thumb when defining a recession. The definition has become somewhat standard, though other factors are considered. (RELATED: The Fed Announces Another Rate Hike To Rein In Inflation, But Economists Aren’t Convinced)

Biden said Thursday that despite the report, the U.S. is on the “right path” amid what he calls a “transition.”

“Coming off of last year’s historic economic growth — and regaining all the private sector jobs lost during the pandemic crisis — it’s no surprise that the economy is slowing down as the Federal Reserve acts to bring down inflation,” Biden said in a statement. “But even as we face historic global challenges, we are on the right path and we will come through this transition stronger and more secure. Our job market remains historically strong, with unemployment at 3.6% and more than 1 million jobs created in the second quarter alone.”