President Joe Biden and some of his top administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, have spent recent days attempting damage control ahead of what could be another negative economic report.

In particular, officials are stressing to the public that though the coming report may show that gross domestic product shrank for the second consecutive quarter, the United States is not really entering a recession. Officials say prolonged COVID-19 factors, coupled with the war in Ukraine, have muddied economic projections and claim that assessing the speed of the post-pandemic economic recovery means examining a variety of economic signals, not just total GDP.