What I mean: if an administration doesn't like a given metric, it should get its replacement metric identified and publicized in advance.
It sure looks a lot like gaslighting when the world has an agreed upon metric and you say "just ignore that; look over here."
That's assuming that they had a previously existing problem with the metric. But why would they, it's always been a fairly reliable rubber stamp. Economic indicators give consistent bad news for an extended period of time, then months later 2 quarters of GDP numbers have been released and the metric says "yep, that was/this is a recession". But the metric now kind of falls on its face in this strange situation of quite a lot of bad economic indicators paired with a strong jobs market.
If we want to rigidly hold to the 2 quarters metric, then we're going to have to accept that "recession" means nothing larger about the economy than "2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth". It just becomes a short way of saying simply that.
The US definition of a recession was identified and publicized a very long time ago. The National Bureau of Economic Research has been putting dates on downturns since 1929 before there was such a thing as gross domestic product.
It’s seems quite advantageous to suddenly change the definition when it slaps you in the face.
I can only assume you must have responded to the wrong comment.
Maybe our indicator should be median rather than average, if we are really worried about the middle class.
What is happening now looks like a reversal of the trend that saw a growing average GDP per Capita coupled with a shrinking median GDP per Capita. The economy is contacting, but the man on the street is seeing a bigger piece of it. Most would agree that's on balance good thing. But calling it not a recession avoids the awkward conversation of how we hid the opposite trend with an over reliance on GDP size.
I compare to 2019 numbers. Everything else is just noise honestly.