The US economy has contracted 0.2 percent in the past three months compared to the first quarter of this year. In that quarter there was already a contraction of 0.4 percent. Still, the White House believes that there is no question of a recession.
According to the American government agency Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), this contraction is partly because companies invested less and the government spent less.
Households still let the money roll. They spent more in restaurants and hotels, but less on groceries.
We often speak of a recession when an economy shrinks for at least two quarters in a row. But the US government released an explanation stating that the contraction of the past two quarters does not immediately mean a recession.
The White House says in this explanation that data about the labor market, expenditure, production and incomes also play a role.
The US National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is the organization that judges whether there is a recession. The NBER is unlikely to make a ruling anytime soon, as the organization typically looks at many statistics from several months before making a decision.