Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that he expects the first quarter GDP figures will be revised up, hinting that the contraction recorded in the government’s first estimate of economic growth for the January through March period might be flipped into an expansion, and said he sees no signs the economy is in a recession.
“These economic numbers are noisy and subject to substantial revision, so I, having looked at a detailed analysis, would believe that the first quarter GDP would be revised upward,” Bessent said in an answer to questions at the House Appropriations Committee.
The government reported last week that gross domestic product, the broadest official measure of the U.S. economy, contracted at an annualized rate of 0.3 percent in the first three months of 2025. That contraction was largely driven by a surge in imports, which are subtractions in the calculation of GDP. Many analysts think that when those imports are accounted for in inventories and sales, the GDP figure will be revised up.
The decline in GDP has prompted some concerns that the U.S. could be entering a recession. By one popular definition, a recession occurs when the economy contracts for two consecutive quarters. The U.S. government, however, relies on a panel of expert economists at the National Bureau for Economic Research to declare the start and end of recessions. That body uses a variety of measurements to discern whether the economy is in a recession—including incomes, employment, industrial production, consumer sales, and and real GDP growth. In 2022, the NBER’s business cycle timing group refused to declare a recession under President Biden even though the economy contracted for two consecutive quarters.
Bessent told the Congressional panel that he does not think the U.S. is currently in a recession.
“I believe in data, and there is nothing in the data that shows that we are in a recession. As a matter of fact, the jobs report has surprised to the upside,” Bessent said.
On Friday, the Department of Labor said the U.S. economy added 177,000 jobs in April, more than the 130,000 forecast by economists. The unemployment rate remains at a historically level level at 4.2 percent.
