Over the past month, things have been looking up for the US economy. The latest consumer-price-index inflation report showed signs of cooling. Measures of growth — from the jobs report to retail sales — have been holding up. All this could point to a safe path for the Federal Reserve to ease up on its interest-rate hikes, let the economy normalize, and keep the US from hitting the economic skids.
But this good news doesn’t mean the US economy is out of the woods yet. From inflation to consumer spending, there are clear signs that the economy is still in real danger of being pushed into a recession.
Cooler but not cool
Over the past few weeks, signs that sky-high inflation is cooling off have been the shift that’s garnered the most attention — and raised the most hopes. July saw improvement across several inflation metrics, including a 0% change in month-over-month prices for the consumer price…
