Atlanta Fed Data Suggests US Could Be Sliding Into a Recession

The R-word, recession, is floating about and you can thank at least in part data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. That branch of the Fed has a gross domestic product (GDP) tracker on its website that “provides a ‘nowcast’ of the official estimate prior to its release by estimating GDP growth using a methodology similar to the one used by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.” 

No official body is saying there’s a recession. That’s the job of the nonprofit National Bureau of Economic Research, which doesn’t directly work for the government and so is potentially less likely to let political advantage persuade it to say there is or is not a recession.