Will the US enter "stagflation" for any quarter in 2025?
Closing Jan 1, 2026 08:01AM (in 9 months)
Stagflation, a term coined in the UK in the 1960s, is simultaneously stagnant economic growth and high inflation (Investopedia - Stagflation). For the purposes of this question, the US will be considered to have entered "stagflation" for a quarter if 1) the annualized rate of change from the preceding quarter shows a contraction in real gross domestic product (GDP) (i.e., it is negative), and 2) the average annual rate of CPI inflation for the same quarter is at or above 3.25%. The question will be suspended on 31 December 2025 if still open and the outcome determined using data as reported by the Federal Reserve Economic Database once the advance estimate for GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2025 is released (FRED - GDP [no changes needed], FRED - CPI, Click "Edit Graph," change "Units" to "Percent Change from Year Ago" and "Modify frequency" to "Quarterly" [the Aggregation method should default to "Average"]). The question will close early for a quarter as of the release of the third estimate of GDP growth for that quarter in combination with the CPI inflation data available upon the GDP third estimate's release. As of the launch of this question, the annualized rate of change from the preceding quarter of real GDP in the third quarter of 2024 was 3.1%, and the inflation rate for the third quarter of 2024 was 2.65987%.
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