Last year at this time, 85 per cent of economists in one poll predicted a recession in the United States this year — and that was an optimistic take compared to the 100 per cent probability of a recession forecast two months earlier. Meanwhile, US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, drawing upon the work of his highly able staff, expressed fear in March that bringing down the rate of inflation would cost millions of American jobs.

And yet none of this has happened. Both inflation and unemployment are headed in the right direction, and most economists expect the US to avoid a recession in 2024. Economists have yet to figure out why things went so well, but it is already clear that a reckoning is due.

Bloomberg Opinion