Worried About a Recession? Here’s When the Next Slump Will Hit
The next recession may be coming sooner than you think.
Eleven of the 31 economists recently surveyed by Bloomberg believed the American recession would hit in 2018, and all but two of them expected the recession to begin within the next five years.
If the recession begins in 2018, the expansion would have lasted nine years, making it the second-longest period of growth in U.S. history after the decade-long expansion that ended when the tech bubble burst in 2001. This average postwar expansion averages about five years.
The recent turmoil in the stock market and the slowdown in China has more investors and analysts using the “R-word,” but the economists surveyed by Bloomberg think we have a bit of time. They pegged the chance of recession over the next 12 months to just 10 percent.
Related: Stocks Are Sending a Recession Warning
While economists talk about the next official recession, many average Americans feel like they’re still climbing out of the last one. In a data brief released last week, the National Employment Law Project found that wages have declined since 2009 for most U.S. workers, when factoring in cost of living increases.
A full jobs recovery is at least two years away, according to an analysis by economist Elise Gould with the Economic Policy Institute. “Wage growth needs to be stronger—and consistently strong for a solid spell—before we can call this a healthy economy,” she wrote in a recent blog post.
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Increasing Number of Americans Delay Medical Care Due to Cost: Gallup
From Gallup: “A record 25% of Americans say they or a family member put off treatment for a serious medical condition in the past year because of the cost, up from 19% a year ago and the highest in Gallup's trend. Another 8% said they or a family member put off treatment for a less serious condition, bringing the total percentage of households delaying care due to costs to 33%, tying the high from 2014.”
Number of the Day: $213 Million
That’s how much the private debt collection program at the IRS collected in the 2019 fiscal year. In the black for the second year in a row, the program cleared nearly $148 million after commissions and administrative costs.
The controversial program, which empowers private firms to go after delinquent taxpayers, began in 2004 and ran for five years before the IRS ended it following a review. It was restarted in 2015 and ran at a loss for the next two years.
Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who played a central role in establishing the program, said Monday that the net proceeds are currently being used to hire 200 special compliance personnel at the IRS.
US Deficit Up 12% to $342 Billion for First Two Months of Fiscal 2020: CBO
The federal budget deficit for October and November was $342 billion, up $36 billion or 12% from the same period last year, the Congressional Budget Office estimated on Monday. Revenues were up 3% while outlays rose by 6%, CBO said.
Hospitals Sue to Protect Secret Prices
As expected, groups representing hospitals sued the Trump administration Wednesday to stop a new regulation would require them to make public the prices for services they negotiate with insurers. Claiming the rule “is unlawful, several times over,” the industry groups, which include the American Hospital Association, say the rule violates their First Amendment rights, among other issues.
"The burden of compliance with the rule is enormous, and way out of line with any projected benefits associated with the rule," the suit says. In response, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said that hospitals “should be ashamed that they aren’t willing to provide American patients the cost of a service before they purchase it.”
See the lawsuit here, or read more at The New York Times.
A Decline in Medicaid and CHIP Enrollment
Between December 2017 and July 2019, enrollment in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) fell by 1.9 million, or 2.6%. The Kaiser Family Foundation provided an analysis of that drop Monday, saying that while some of it was likely caused by enrollees finding jobs that offer private insurance, a significant portion is related to enrollees losing health insurance of any kind. “Experiences in some states suggest that some eligible people may be losing coverage due to barriers maintaining coverage associated with renewal processes and periodic eligibility checks,” Kaiser said.
