Commerce Secretary: 'I Don't See Any Reason to Think That We Will Have a Serious Recession'

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo admits that inflation is a "problem," but she doesn't think we should be "talking ourselves into a recession."

She spoke to ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, four days before the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its Consumer Price Index for June 2022. The last two reports, for April and May, showed year-to-year inflation roaring ahead at 8.5 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively.

"So let me say this: the economy, in the past year, year-and-a-half, has been growing at unprecedently high rates, 5, 6 percent," Raimondo said:

"I don't think that we should expect that, right -- I think it's normal to think as we continue to come out of the pandemic we will transition to a more -- to a robust growth, but a more steady growth.

"So I do think at some point, you know, we will see a less rapid growth in the economy, but I don't see any reason to think that we will have a serious recession, in fact -- you know, by no measure, right? We recovered all the jobs since the pandemic. People's household balance sheets are strong. Companies are doing well. Companies are hiring. Companies are growing.

"I was recently talking to the CEO of a major U.S. company who said to me, you know, it's almost like we're trying to talk ourselves into a recession. He said he sees no signs of it. His customers, both individual and companies, are buying. So the fundamentals of this economy are very strong.