Biden’s statement assumed that the economy is currently “going strong.”
A report that same day from leading economic and business information services firm IHS Markit contradicted this contention, and instead showed that the US economy’s Gross Domestic Product contracted slightly from Oct. 2021 to Jan. 2022:
The GDP in January is less than October’s GDP. In the last seven months, the GDP has decreased from the prior months three times. The GDP in the last three months has decreased twice from prior months.
The firm’s narrative predicts that the first-quarter 2022 GDP will come in at an annualized 1.0 percent. However, even that dismal forecast depends on the economy turning around and growing by a non-annualized 0.4 percent (5 percent annualized) in both February and March.