US recession 'impossible' by summer next year, White House's Hassett says
Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Kevin Hassett on concerns by U.S. CFOs over a potential recession, the Federal Reserve, the future of USMCA and concerns of potential gridlock in Washington, D.C.
Two-thirds of U.S. CFO’s expect a recession by summer of next year, but White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Kevin Hassett believes the economy shows no signs of slowing down.
“There’s so much momentum right now,” he told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney on Friday. “It just seems almost impossible that there would be a recession by the summer of next year.”
Hassett said the “blockbuster” retail sales this week, which rose 1.6 percent, the fastest pace since September 2017, are a good indicator of a healthy economy.
“The reason why everybody’s spending so much money on .... consumer goods is that incomes are rising so fast right now” he said, adding that even the bottom 10 percent of Americans saw 6.5 percent wage growth last year.
“With that kind of income growth there's going to be consumption growth, there's going to be GDP growth, we've got all this capital spending—it’s just impossible,” he said.
The Commerce Department is expected to release first-quarter GDP figures next week.