Economists have become increasingly optimistic about the odds of a soft landing. But as 2024 begins to unfold, risks remain.
With inflation falling, unemployment low and the Federal Reserve signaling it could soon begin cutting interest rates, forecasters are becoming increasingly optimistic that the U.S. economy could avoid a recession.
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Wells Fargo last week became the latest big bank to predict that the economy will achieve a soft landing, gently slowing rather than screeching to a halt. The bank’s economists had been forecasting a recession since the middle of 2022.
Yet if forecasters were wrong when they predicted a recession last year, they could be wrong again, this time in the opposite direction. The risks that economists highlighted in 2023 haven’t gone away, and recent economic data, though still mostly positive, has suggested some cracks beneath the surface.
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Source: Economy - nytimes.com
