Economy
Greatest Risk to Today’s Economy? The FED Despite Turbulence, Recession Remains Unlikely in 2023
Today’s Maladies Are Symptoms Of A ‘Stimulus Hangover’ Not Drivers Of A Downturn; California Finally Recovers All Jobs Lost To Pandemic
A leading economic forecast does not see a downturn in 2023 as assured, or even likely, as long as the Fed doesn’t drive one. According to Beacon Economics‘ latest outlook for the United States and California, today’s ailments are symptoms of a hangover from the over stimulus that was injected into the U.S. economy during the pandemic, not signs of deeper weakness or triggers of a near-term recession.
“Today’s economy is running at full speed, the exact opposite of what economists call a recession, when an economy produces less than it is able,” said Christopher Thornberg, Founding Partner of Beacon Economics and one of the forecast authors. “The United States is not struggling with a lack of demand; we’re struggling to meet demand.”
The new forecast points to the fact that the U.S. economy has added 4 million payroll jobs since the start of the year, that the unemployment rate remains well below 4%, that the job openings rate is well above its pre-pandemic peak, that industrial production is at a record high, that manufacturing orders are still rising as inventories remain low, that corporate profits have started to climb, and that consumers continue to spend, spend, spend – all signs that the economy is operating at capacity.
According to the outlook, today’s maladies of high inflation, declining asset prices, rising interest rates, and a turning housing market are symptoms of an economy ‘cooling’ back to normal after being overstimulated by the Federal government during the pandemic, not any fundamental deficiency in the system. Indeed, some of what is happening today is bringing numbers that hit record high levels over the past couple of years, such as stock market values and housing prices, back down to earth.
“Stock markets today are still 15% to 20% above where they were pre-pandemic, and even if home prices fell by 20%, which is highly unlikely, they would still be 20% above where they were before COVID hit,” said Thornberg. “Some of this is a recalibration – we need to recognize that and not panic.”
However, the new outlook’s call for ‘no recession in 2023’ comes with a big caveat: the Federal Reserve. If the Fed continues to raise rates until something truly snaps in the lending markets, they could needlessly drive a downturn, according to the forecast. If, on the other hand, they start to moderate, the economy will likely ride out the bumps caused by inflation and asset price declines and achieve the proverbial ‘soft landing’, meaning that the post-pandemic expansion will continue, but at a slower rate.
“While we don’t see a recession as an assured outcome as many other forecasts have suggested, we certainly acknowledge that bad choices by policymakers in the months ahead could set one off,” said Thornberg. “Today’s economy is indeed fragile and highly susceptible to a large negative shock, such as rapidly rising rates, but that die is not cast yet.”
Additional Key Findings:
- In the housing market, there is no debt crisis behind today’s repricing (unlike prior to the Great Recession) meaning it won’t have much of an impact on the broader economy. What happens in real estate will stay in real estate this time around.
- U.S. households are sitting on over $4 trillion in checking account balances, almost five times as much as pre-pandemic. Consumer demand will remain strong based on wealth effects alone, which will help carry the economy into 2023.
- Consumers may be starting to indulge in too much new debt, but the rapid interest rate spike will prevent a dangerous build-up.
- While the overall consumer economy is healthy, inflation causes transfers of real wealth—from savers to borrowers, from those on fixed incomes to those on variable ones—and some households will be hurt.
- California reached a key milestone in October 2022: The state finally recovered all the jobs lost due to the pandemic-driven shutdowns. Because of its heightened worker shortage, it reached this goal more slowly than the U.S. as a whole and more slowly than many other states. “Typically, there are more unemployed workers in California than there are job openings, but since the outbreak of the pandemic, that status quo has been turned on its head,” said Taner Osman, Research Manager at Beacon Economics and one of the forecast authors. “Today, employers in the state are struggling to hire the workers they need.”
- Currently, the number of homes that have sold in California stands at around half the level it was in 2021 and is approximately one-third lower than during the years immediately prior to the pandemic.
- The pandemic has accentuated one of California’s most troubling long-term trends: the divide between coastal and inland regions. Since 2000, the number of housing units in the state’s inland communities has grown at three times the rate of coastal communities; at the same time, inland communities have added jobs at three times the rate of coastal areas.