JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The latest financial reports released this week revealed that inflation-fighting efforts have not slowed inflation as much as it should have. Now the big fear is that multiple interest rate hikes designed to fight inflation could potentially lead to a recession.
It’s no secret that most Americans are concerned about money and an upcoming recession. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company recently surveyed 2,000 people across the country. 68% of Americans expect a recession to happen in the next few months and 80% expect it to be severe.
“The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates a full five percentage point in 12 months and there’s been no time in history when they’ve raised interest rates more than 3 percentage points where a recession hasn’t occurred six to 12 months later. So, people are just looking for history to repeat itself but so far, we’re not exactly seeing signs of that,” said Joe Krier, Financial Analyst for Tidal Flow Trading.
While Krier believes it is still too early to tell, he says people should keep an eye on the job market.
“There’s a lot of corporations in America that are hanging on to people because they’re not sure if the economy is going to slow down. If you have a job in an industry that tends to lay people off in economic slowdowns, look around because there are other choices out there and if you make a job change before everybody is out looking then you’ll have a lot more success,” said Krier.
Through the first half of 2023, the economy added 1.67 million jobs, the 12th largest January to June total on record, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But recent data shows the employment market is slowing.
“Things are nice and stable for a while and then things just get out of whack and that’s when recessions happen,” said Krier.