'Delayed' Recession Warning Issued for US Economy

The U.S. economy is not yet out of troubled waters and could still face a "delayed" recession, according to Gary Shilling.

The financial analyst, who correctly predicted the crisis of 2007-2008, said that the resilience in the U.S. economy since the end of the pandemic has mostly been due to the labor market, but this might start to slow down in the near future.

"You haven't had that weakness in labor markets that, I think, you normally would have had and would have [caused] a recession [in 2023]," he told CNBC. "That doesn't mean we won't have one, but it means whatever it is, it's delayed."

He added that there are already "preliminary signs of weakness" in the market that would suggest it is slowing down, including wage gains, quits and service inflation.

"It's the service inflation [that] really is a difficulty for the Fed, and if you look at wages in the service area, they're rising 5 percent or 6 percent year over year," he said. "Now that's hardly commensurate with the Fed's target of 2 percent inflation."

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The financial analyst said that there's no "clear evidence that the economy is falling apart" to justify the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates.

"As long as employment is as strong as it is, the Fed is in no rush to cut interest rates," he said.

Newsweek contacted Shilling for comment by email on Monday.

Any prediction made by Shilling is usually taken seriously considering that he was proven to be correct in his previous warnings. In 2007, he warned that "housing would sink the economy" ahead of the bursting of the housing bubble. In 2008, he said a "serious recession" was likely to consume the U.S. economy—and it did.

Read more: How the Federal Reserve Impacts Mortgage Rates

Now, Shilling said that the recession many feared would hit the U.S. in 2023, but failed to do so, might still materialize if the labor market slows.

"We've had more strength in employment than probably is commensurate with the state of business," he said. "Small businesses are very sensitive to economic conditions because they don't tend to be very heavily capitalized. They are cutting back on their employment and other areas."

According to Shilling, small business is one of the "normal harbingers of recessions."

On X, formerly Twitter, Shilling wrote that "despite a seemingly universal feeling that the economy is in for a soft landing, I see some reliable recession harbingers: inverted yield curve, still-high interest rates, declining leading indicators index."

Update 4/8/24, 10:30 a.m. ET: This breaking news story was updated to include more information.