Lazear: U.S. Not in Recession

NEW YORK -- U.S. Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Edward Lazear is confident the U.S. economy has not slipped into a recession and is optimistic that the economic stimulus payments could help growth in the current quarter, the Wall Street Journal said on Thursday.

Lazear said that job declines thus far have been well below those of the 2001 recession, which itself was mild.

Only retail sales and manufacturing are showing the kind of deterioration that the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) would consider in recession range, Lazear said to a group of reporters, according to the Journal.

The stimulus payments, and the effect of the Federal Reserve's interest-rate cuts should make the second quarter a period of "solid growth," he said.

"I would be very surprised if the NBER, looking back at this period, would date this as a recession," Lazear said, according to the report.

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