Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent assured he is “very, very optimistic” about the economic outlook of 2026 and dismissed concerns of an impending recession.
Bessent appeared on NBC News’s Meet the Press on Sunday since the September jobs report was released late due to the government shutdown. While recessions entail a rising unemployment rate, the unemployment rate rose a tenth of a percentage point to 4.4% in September, which is a historically low number. Still, host Kristen Welker asked Bessent if parts of the economy have “dipped into a recession.”
“Clearly, housing has been struggling,” Bessent said. “Interest rate-sensitive sectors have been in a recession, and the other thing that was not helpful, Kristen, was this longest government shutdown in history, was a 1.5% hit to GDP.”
This blow to gross domestic product followed a report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis that found the economy grew at a 3.8% annual rate in the second quarter of this year, an upward revision of five-tenths of a percentage point, just before the shutdown began.
Still, Welker followed up and asked if the country is at risk of falling into a recession. The last recession was a very brief yet sharp downturn at the outset of the pandemic in 2020.
“No. I am very confident about 2026,” Bessent said. “So under the one, big, beautiful bill especially for working Americans, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, auto deductibility on loans for American cars, that’s all kicking in. Americans have not changed their withholding so they’re going to see substantial refunds to working families in the first quarter of 2026.”
“I am very, very optimistic in 2026. We are setting the table for a very strong, non-inflationary growth economy,” Bessent added.
Trump’s window for avoiding a recession might be closing
According to the most recent inflation report, coffee prices have shot up 18.9% over the past year. Instant coffee has gone up in price by 21.7%. Banana prices are up nearly 7% in the 12 months ending in September, according to the same report.
The National Bureau of Economic Research defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months.” This is typically a span of two consecutive quarters.
