The U.S. economy on the edge in 2024, economist warns
Avoiding a recession in the U.S. next year may be challenging, with economist Carl Weinberg pointing to a sharp decline in consumer spending as a major risk.
“Consumers are just waking up to the fact that they’re financing their spending by running up their credit cards, and that the interest on those credit cards is over the top, out of control, off the hook right now,” the chief economist of High Frequency Economics told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Wednesday.
With real incomes just starting to recover and the rise in credit card delinquencies, Weinberg’s base case assumes a slowdown in growth, though the risk of a recession is a nontrivial one.
Monica Defend, head of the Amundi Investment Institute, also predicts a U.S. recession in the first half of next year, as financial conditions start to bite the U.S. consumer and their excess savings from 2023 are depleted.
Despite strong growth in the U.S. this year, the outlook for 2024 remains uncertain, as the delayed and unpredictable impacts of higher rates continue to be a cause of concern for many strategists.
Read more about these concerns and the potential impact on the U.S. economy here.