Lake County Gazette

President Joe Biden is promoting the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 as his plan for tackling inflation; however, it’s garnered mixed feelings as communities face high prices at supermarkets and fluctuating gas prices.

“While economists may not be able to agree on whether the nation is in a recession yet or not,” Rep. Chris Bos (R-Lake Zurich) wrote on Facebook. “In Illinois, families are already struggling with the high costs of gas, groceries, and taxes. We cannot ignore the realities families and small businesses are facing. We need more action to provide meaningful relief.”

The American Psychological Association (APA) noted as economic recessions happen, people’s anxiety about securing their finances grew.

“Fear is such a strong emotion that it doesn’t last very long,” Stephen Worchel, a social psychologist at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, said to APA in 2008. “There’s a recognition that we can’t continue to live this way ... and people start to take a more cognitive approach.”

Fox Illinois is reporting economists are disagreeing over whether the United States is technically in a recession, with the recent GDP report showing the country’s second consecutive quarter of negative GDP growth, but with job growth remaining high. The Federal Reserve recently raised interest rates by .75%, marking its fourth rate increase of the year. 

Austan Goolsbee, economist and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said he believes that high job growth indicates that the U.S. is not in a recession, but that one could be on the horizon. 

“We might be close,” she said. “I mean, there are conflicting observations here. So, you’ve got GDP slowing down. The job growth still is quite strong.

“The wild card is this: what is the Fed going to do? Because the Fed is raising interest rates as fast as any time in recent memory, so housing is going to suffer, people with credit card bills are going to be paying, buying a car is going to be more difficult if they overdo it. That would send us into recession. The Fed raising interest rates faster than the economy can handle is the single most common cause of recessions in U.S. history.”

Investopedia wrote that recessions are common in economics; however, they happen less frequently and are shorter nowadays. It added there isn’t one sure-fire recession indicator.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics issued its latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) summary on July 13, which found that costs have risen 9.1% in the last year, marking a 40-year high. In the last month, the cost of energy increased by 7.5%, gas prices rose 11.2%, and the cost of food increased by 1%. In the last year, the cost of gas has risen by 59.9%, while food prices have increased by 10.4%.

Investopedia added the last recession in the U.S. was in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The average cost of a gallon of regular gas in Illinois is $4.633, according to AAA, up from $3.432 one year ago and higher than the national average of $4.212.  In Lake County, gas prices average $4.673 per gallon.

According to. Investopedia, the U.S. has been in 14 recessions since the Great Depression.

Steve Ericson, executive director of Feeding Illinois, said inflation is hurting the state's food banks, Advantage News reported.

“The cost of everything has gone up and the demand side for our network of agencies has also gone up,” Ericson said. “So that is a bad combination.”