Published May 19, 2023
There is no shortage of commentary and hand-wringing about a coming recession. In the piece below, one Fidelity analyst posits that the recession may have already occurred. Here is Denise Chisholm’s analysis:
“Did we already have a hard landing? The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) hasn’t officially called a recession, but signs suggest that we may have already had a fairly bad one. One of the most consistent recession indicators has been a contraction in real wages (adjusted for inflation), which happened in every recession since 1962 except the 2020 COVID shutdown (chart hereunder). Real wages declined throughout 2022—falling more than they did during the Great Recession—as inflation outpaced wage growth. Real wage growth may have bottomed last fall; a rebound could provide a tailwind for the economy and the stock market. (more…)