US economy already in recession: Ex-Treasury official

A former senior official with the US Treasury Department says the country’s economy is already experiencing recession, refuting President Donald Trump’s claim of his administration’s strong economic performance as mere “hoax.”

Paul Craig Roberts, a former US assistant secretary of treasury, made the remarks to Press TV’s The Debate program from Atlanta on Tuesday.

“My opinion is that the US economy has never recovered from financial crisis of the decades ago. It’s been in recession for decades,” he said.

“He’s delusional,” Roberts said, referring to Trump’s recurrent boast about the country’s being the world’s strongest economy by far and that it was enjoying a progressive and mobile economy at home too.

Roberts debunked the measures chosen by American officials to obtain the figures of unemployment rate and growth domestic product growth.

“Statistics show we have a low unemployment rate because they don’t count the unemployed. If you haven’t searched for jobs in the past four weeks, you are considered not to be in the workforce, and therefore you are not part of the unemployment statistics,” he said.

The expert said US officials only take into account “long-term discouraged workers,” when measuring the unemployment rate. The method offers a jobless figure of 20 percent, but when one factor discouraged workers in the short-term, the rate skyrockets to double the announced figure, he stated.

Besides, Washington only takes inflation into account when measuring the GDP growth, the guest added. “So that’s a hoax as well.”

PressTV-US economists expect recession in 2020 or 2021: Survey

A majority of economists expect a US recession in the next two years, according to a survey released Monday.

Brent Budowsky, columnist with The Hill, who was also speaking at the program from Washington D.C., rejected the idea that the American economy was embroiled in recession.

He, however, did not rule out that the economy risks sliding into recession in the near future.

“I think the majority of economists are right that there’s a good chance…that we could be heading into recession, and even more the world could be entering a recession,” Budowsky said.

“I think there’s real danger of a recession. I think there will be a global recession,” he added.

Budowsky’s comments came as US media say the Trump administration is considering extraordinary measures to avoid recession.

The New York Times reported recently that officials were discussing reversal of the new tariffs imposed on Chinese products —something, which despite Trump’s denial, is thought to have hit the economy badly.

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