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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned Tuesday that although the U.S. economy was not expected to fall into recession this year and next, a small shock could be enough to push it into that scenario.
The margin the U.S. has to avoid recession is very narrow, according to Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, director of the Fund’s research department, at the presentation of the global outlook review.
According to the IMF, the U.S. economy will grow by 2.3% this year and 1% next year. These estimates reduce by 1.4 and 1.3 points, respectively, those of April.
Gourinchas admitted that there are several indicators that point to a slowdown in the world’s leading economy and, although he stressed that the labor market is strong with an unemployment rate of only 3.6%, he warned that the restrictive monetary policy —which is already being implemented to combat inflation— may lead to further economic cooling and worse employment data.
Gourinchas stressed the Fund’s forecasts do not foresee an economic recession either in 2022 or 2023 for this country.
In any case, Gourinchas acknowledged that even if there is no recession, this does not mean that people will not notice that the economy is slowing down and will not be feeling the rise in prices in their pockets, as is already happening.
