Bessent ‘very, very optimistic’ about economy, says US will not enter 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

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