![CNN's Matt Egan says Americans 'hate' this economy [Screenshot CNN]](https://images.dailycaller.com/image/width=960,height=411,fit=cover,f=auto/https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/CNNs-Matt-Egan-says-Americans-hate-this-economy-Screenshot-CNN-e1659033175841.jpg "CNN's Matt Egan says Americans 'hate' this economy [Screenshot CNN]")
CNN’s Matt Egan said Thursday that Americans “hate” the economy as fears of a recession intensify.
Egan and the CNN panel discussed the report showing a second quarter of declining GDP, which many say indicates the U.S. is in, or headed toward, a recession. President Joe Biden said Thursday that the report was not surprising and the U.S. is on the “right path,” despite the numbers. Egan said the biggest indicator to know whether the economy is on the right path is the inflation rate.
“I think this all comes back to inflation, right?” Egan said. “For so many months people thought inflation would be transitory. Obviously, it wasn’t. It keeps going in the wrong direction. ”
WATCH:
“And there’s numbers and then there’s — the technical recession and I feel like I’m having a recession,” host Kate Bolduan said. (RELATED: ‘Republican Economic Policy Never Works’: ‘The View’ Hosts Get Into Shouting Match Over Recession)
“Exactly. Some of this is semantics. The economists are gonna debate what a recession is, when we’re in one, when it starts, when it ends, they’ll not tell it when it actually happens. They’ll wait for months before we know that. What we do know is that Americans hate this economy, right?” Egan said. “The CNN poll out recently found that 64% of Americans believe the U.S. economy is currently in a recession. Now, that may not be the case. But that’s what people feel.”
A recent CNN poll found 64% of Americans feel the economy is already in a recession, while just 18% of those polled described the state of the economy as good.
Inflation jumped 9.1% over the past year. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Economy Analysis released data Thursday showing real GDP decreased at an annual rate of 0.9% in the second quarter of 2022. The Biden administration has remained steadfast in its position that the economy is not in a recession but rather a “transition.”
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 to define a recession, with the definition becoming somewhat of a standard.
White House Director of the National Economic Council Brian Deese claimed Thursday that “virtually nothing signals” a recession, despite the two consecutive quarters of falling GDP.
Biden also tried to dismiss fears of a recession, saying that it’s not surprising the economy is slowing down but that the nation is on the “right path.”