Are we in a recession? (spoiler: no)I wanted to aggregate some of the things that the NBER considers when determining a recession, and provide three links that people can follow to monitor for recession likelihood.
The NBER uses lagging data so they officially declare recessions after they've been under way for some time and sometimes at their conclusion. However, we can monitor the data points that they consider to view whether they are expanding or contracting.
I've included:
Non-farm payrolls
Consumption
Household employment
Real GDP
Gross industrial output
Real personal income less transfer payments
You can see that, despite the rightening monetary conditions, real economic variables continue to expand.
I've also included the Sahm Recession indicator by WeatherUmrella. This uses a 0.5 increase in unemployment over 3 months to indicate that a recession is underway. www.tradingview.com
Links:
I'll keep this chart public (hopefully it's helpful). www.tradingview.com
Sahm Rule official at the Federal Reserve fred.stlouisfed.org
Smoothed probability of recession fred.stlouisfed.org
The last uses the same criteria as the NBER, using some matrix algebra to use what's available to extrapolate a real time determination. It's been very accurate.