Aug 19, 2019

Trump dismisses economy concerns: I don't see a recession

Rebecca Falconer

Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

President Trump joined his top White House economic advisers in downplaying concerns that the U.S. is heading for a recession, telling reporters on Sunday: "I don't see a recession."

Why it matters: The stock market saw a huge sell-off last week after the yield curve inversion, a warning sign that's predated every recession for the past 50 years.

The big picture: White House trade adviser Peter Navarro and the Trump administration's economic adviser Larry Kudlow took to the Sunday morning talk shows in an effort to calm recession concerns.

  • Navarro also denied that tariffs on Chinese goods are hurting American consumers. That's despite reports to the contrary from researchers at leading institutions including the International Monetary Fund, Harvard, the University of Chicago and the Federal Reserve of Boston, Axios' Zachary Basu notes.

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Zachary Basu

Trump backtracks on payroll tax cut

Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

President Trump abandoned his stance on considering a payroll tax cut Wednesday, just 1 day after telling reporters that he had been "thinking about" whether to pursue the move.

The big picture: Discussions over cutting the payroll tax, which currently sits at 6.2% and is used to fund Social Security and Medicare, are part of a broader White House effort to stem fears of a coming recession — though Trump insisted to reporters that "whether or not we do it now, it's not being done because of recession." Sources tell Axios' Jonathan Swan that Trump is "running out of tools" to juice the economy, with an economic slowdown looking increasingly likely ahead of the 2020 election.

Go deeperArrowUpdated Aug 21, 2019
Dion Rabouin

Only a few states are at serious risk of recession

Data: LendingTree; Chart: Naema Ahmed/Axios

There are growing worries about a global recession or a U.S. recession, but individual states are also at risk. While states generally move in concert with the country, not every state started and ended its last recession in line with the broader U.S. recession of 2007–2009.

Case in point: There have been 5 states where recessions have occurred between that recession and now. The most recent is Alaska, which was in recession from Q2 2016–Q2 2017, Lending Tree chief economist Tendayi Kapfidze notes in a recent post.

Go deeperArrowSep 13, 2019
Dan Primack, Mike Allen

The media overcorrects for its past flubs

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Most business reporters didn't see the Great Recession of 2008 coming, and political media knew Hillary Clinton would win.

Why it matters: As recession signals flash once again and the 2020 election looms, they're both over-correcting — afraid of missing the world's biggest story — again.

Go deeperArrowSep 4, 2019