Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Sunday addressed growing concerns that the U.S. economy is headed toward a recession, saying a downturn is not guaranteed.
“Look, it’s possible, but not inevitable. And we’re doing everything we can to strengthen the foundations of the American economy,” Buttigieg said on ABC’s “This Week.”
The Federal Reserve and other central banks have been hiking interest rates aggressively in an effort to control high inflation, but the moves have stoked worries that economy could be inadvertently pushed into a recession.
The U.S. is not alone in its economic concerns — the United Nations earlier this month warned that a recession could sweep in on a global scale.
Buttigieg on Sunday said that part of the work to shore up the American economy against a recession includes “a lot on the supply side, expanding the productive capacity of this country.”
Demand has surged, Buttigieg noted but supply has struggled to rise to meet it.
“Part of why we do see a lot of pressure on prices is that while demand has come back — Americans have more income because Americans have jobs in this almost historically low level of unemployment — it’s been hard for the supply side to keep up,” Buttigieg said.