The "recession" gotcha is a pathetic defense of Bidenomics

Liberal pundits are demonstrating a much deeper economic illiteracy than Americans with a shaky grasp of jargon.

The Guardian has released a poll reporting that 56% of Americans believe the US is in “a recession” even though we are not. Or rather, we are not seeing negative GDP growth for a prolonged period of time, which is what economists ordinarily have in mind when they use the word “recession.”

But the United States has experienced a significant drop in real personal disposable income compared with where it was in 2021.

And since RDPI has a very large effect on how people actually experience the economy, it isn’t hard to understand what they have in mind when they call this a “recession.” All they really mean is something like “the economy is underperforming right now.”