Owen Shroyer: Biden administration changing the definition of recession to deny that it is happening

07/27/2022 / By Mary Villareal

The Biden administration is denying that a recession is underway in the United States. Instead, it is redefining the meaning of recession in a way that is very insulting to Americans.

InfoWars host Owen Shroyer touched on how the Biden administration redefined “recession” ahead of a “potentially negative” Gross Domestic Product (GDP) report during a segment of his “War Room” program.

“No, it’s not potentially negative – it is. We already know the numbers: It’s another quarter of GDP going down,” he said.

According to Shroyer, the administration is aware that the GDP report will show less than three percent growth. Instead of owning up to it, he explained that Washington is pushing propaganda by redefining terms in a bid to convince Americans that the U.S. is not in crisis.

A recession has long been defined as back-to-back quarters of negative growth. If the report matches many observers’ criteria for a downturn, then warnings of a catastrophic recession will only get louder. (Related: Central banks trying to combat inflation as Europe and US face likelihood of recession.)

Biden himself chimed in, arguing on July 25 that the U.S. is not in a recession and will never be in one.

“We’re not going to be a recession, in my view. The [unemployment] rate is still one of the lowest we’ve had in history. My hope is we go from this rapid growth to steady growth.

Other entities also adjusting definition of economic recession

The InfoWars host’s complaint is indeed worrying, given that other entities are also adjusting their definition of an economic recession.

The nonprofit National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) recently announced that its criteria for a recession are far more complicated than the simplistic “two quarters of negative economic growth” rule. The NBER serves as the semi-official arbiter of when downturns in the U.S. start and end, according to Business Insider.

According to the private research organization, it now looks for “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months” before a recession can be declared. In other words, it will take more than two-quarters of negative GDP for the U.S. to be in a recession under the new definition.

The White House doubled down on its denial that the U.S. is experiencing a recession by means of a July 21 blog post. The entry, penned by its Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), laid out its argument as to why the country is not in a downturn. It included the definition of a recession as set by NBER, which the CEA dubbed as “the official recession scorekeeper.”

In its blog entry, the CEA cited strong job creation and industrial production as signs that the economy is fine. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre echoed this by saying that the strength of the labor market and other indicators are “not what we generally see as we talk about recession or even pre-recession.”

While the blog post attempted to clear up the official criteria of a recession, it sparked accusations that the White House was adjusting the definition to soften the blow of what is looking like a bad GDP report.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) took to the Senate floor on July 25 to slam the blog post, saying that it was a “frantic effort to redefine the word recession.” The Kentucky lawmaker said that unless they can explain it better, the Biden administration has little time before the voters can make up their minds as midterm elections approach.

Still, many like Shroyer remained skeptical – with the InfoWars host commenting about how the topic has become a “political battlefield.”

Visit Bubble.news for more updates on the state of the American economy.

Watch the video below for more of Owen Shroyer’s commentary from recession to gas prices and more.

This video is from the InfoWars channel on Brighteon.com.