Commerce Secretary Raimondo: ‘I Don’t See Any Reason to Think that We Will Have a Serious Recession’

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that she did not believe the U.S. economy was headed toward a “serious recession.”

Partial transcript as follows:

RAIMONDO: I think we can. So let me say this, the economy, in the past year, year-and-a-half, has been growing at unprecedently high rates, 5, 6%. I don’t think that we should expect that, right, I think it’s normal to think as we continue to come out of the pandemic we will transition to a more — to a robust growth, but a more steady growth.

So I do think at some point, you know, we will see a less rapid growth in the economy, but I don’t see any reason to think that we will have a serious recession, in fact — you know, by no measure, right? We recovered all the jobs since the pandemic. People’s household balance sheets are strong. Companies are doing well. Companies are hiring. Companies are growing.

I was recently talking to the CEO of a major U.S. company who said to me, you know, it’s almost like we’re trying to talk ourselves into a recession. He said he sees no signs of it. His customers, both individual and companies, are buying. So the fundamentals of this economy are very strong.

Inflation is our problem and it is our top priority. And so I think perhaps a transition to a more traditional growth level, but I don’t think we should be talking ourselves into a recession.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You cited all the good news, 5 to 6% growth over the last couple of years, the jobs situation is as strong as it’s been in — really in decades. We’ve gotten back almost all the jobs from the pandemic, as you pointed out.

So how do you explain the disconnect between the strong economic fundamentals that you point out and the lowest consumer confidence that we’ve seen in years?

RAIMONDO: Inflation. One word. People talk about it in different ways. But if you ask folks what they’re worried about they’ll either say grocery store prices are high, food prices are high, energy prices, gas prices, that’s in people’s daily lives, right? So if — every day you’re confronted with these high prices it’s hard on folks and the president has just said that in that clip I heard, it’s tough for people. That’s why it’s the president’s number one priority. It’s our number one priority to get a handle on these prices and we will.

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