“openly predict a U.S. recession”
We’ve already been in a recession for a long time. A recession is a downtrend in the economy that can affect production and employment, and produce lower household income and spending. We have that, right now. The defined difference between a recession and a depression is that the effects of a depression are much more severe, characterized by widespread unemployment and major pauses in economic activity. We already have that, right now.
The unemployment rate in the United States is obtained by dividing the number of unemployed persons by the number of persons in the labor force (employed or unemployed) and multiplying that figure by 100.
https://www.britannica.com/story/how-is-the-us-unemployment-rate-calculated
So if I read that right, they are creating the labor force number by taking the employed or unemployed (part time, or seasonal) that are determined in the labor force to be in that number, so they are inflating that number.
We all know about bare shelves in the markets and the inability to repair things due to no parts in large numbers throughout the US. So what we have is not a recession but a depression. Kind of like “walking pneumonia.” It is pneumonia just like a rose by any other name.
wy69
The labor force calculation is the fatal flaw in the unemployment rate calculations. Thats why the Fed long ago began, internally, to use the Employment Rate, or the Employment-Population Ratio, EMRATIO.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO
As can be seen, the US is still recovering from the Covid employment crash. Part of this is because there are still lingering effects of Covid policies. Upshot is however that there are still a lot of unemployed people.