For many months, the Federal Reserve has been saying that after the pandemic's economic one-two punch (followed by three, four, and five), the agency could engineer a "soft landing."

The minutes from the Fed's Federal Open Market Committee meeting in March finally gave up on the soft landing and recognized that people and companies would have to buckle their seatbelts.

"For some time, the forecast for the U.S. economy prepared by the staff had featured subdued real GDP growth for this year and some softening in the labor market. Given their assessment of the potential economic effects of the recent banking-sector developments, the staff's projection at the time of the March meeting included a mild recession starting later this year, with a recovery over the subsequent two years," came the admission on page 6. "Real GDP growth in 2024 was projected to remain below the staff's estimate of potential output growth, and then GDP growth in 2025 was expected to be above that of potential."