As U.S. Enters Recession, White House Says ‘We Are In A Transition To A Stable And Steady Growth’

During Thursday’s press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the upcoming report on employment numbers in July, which is expected to show the worst month for job gains since President Biden took office, is part of the economic “transition to a stable and steady growth.”

Jean-Pierre’s comments come shortly after a report from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis showed that the United States has officially entered a recession as the economy continued to shrink in the second quarter of 2022.

“Friday’s employment report is expected to show the job gains last month slowed to 250,000 from 372,000 in June.  Does the administration view this as a sign the economy is healthy?” A reporter asked.

“So, as we’ve been saying for many months now, we are in a — and the President — including the President — has been saying that we’re in the transition to a stable and steady growth,” Jean-Pierre replied. “And during that transition, what you’ll see is instead of that record-high-breaking number — job numbers that we’ve been seeing every month in the realm of 500,000 to 600,000 jobs on average per month, we’re expecting to be closer to 150,000 jobs per month.”

“And so that would actually sign — that will be a sign of — of a success of this transition,” she added. “And this kind of job growth is consistent with the lower — the low unemployment numbers that we’ve been seeing — that rate of 3.6 percent.  And we see that and others have seen — see that as a healthy economy.”

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: "We are in a transition to a stable and steady growth."

FACT: the economy has shrunk two quarters in a row. pic.twitter.com/eUzk6IMs7G

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 4, 2022

Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis released a report showing that the U.S. economy contracted in the second quarter of 2022.

“Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 0.9 percent in the second quarter of 2022, following a decrease of 1.6 percent in the first quarter,” the report said. “The smaller decrease in the second quarter primarily reflected an upturn in exports and a smaller decrease in federal government spending.”