"Worried" Americans already feel the country is in a recession "even though technically we may not be there," former Trump administration Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta said Monday on Newsmax.
In an interview on "National Report," Acosta said signs of a sagging economy are obvious.
"We're seeing more and more major corporations laying off, individuals are starting to see bankruptcies, and let's face it — the economy is showing all these signs that it is not doing well … that all the problems that have been caused by the spending and the out-of-control policies of this administration are catching up," he said.
According to Acosta, "Americans are worried."
"You see it in the polls. They're spending less, and that is going to only accelerate the pace at which the economy goes into recession," he asserted.
Acosta said U.S. buyers are "very smart, and they realize that the economy is not doing well."
"One of the difficulties of this situation is that the impact that you feel varies based on income," he noted. "Those individuals who are wealthy, who make most of their income from capital from the stock market, from the bond market, they can shift their money from stocks to bonds … find ways to invest in inflation resistant assets.
"But most of us who make our income from wages, from work, we need to spend our money. We need to buy food. We need to buy housing. We need to pay for our car. And so we have no choice.
"We need to pay these higher prices … and so you're seeing consumer confidence taking a real hit because Americans realize that for them we are … in recession, even though technically, we may not be there."
When the consumer confidence index is released, it'll likely reflect those hard facts, he added.
"Everyone's expecting everything to come down a little bit," he said. "But we have to realize that ... even if the index comes down a little bit, and only a little bit, most Americans already are starting to pull back on their spending. You're seeing it in the retail sales figures. You're seeing it in things like … bankruptcy."
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Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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