Bessent Suggests US Already in Housing Recession, Calls for Lower Interest Rates

The U.S. housing market and other parts of the economy may already be in a recession due to high interest rates, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday, reiterating that the Federal Reserve should initiate more rate cuts. “I think that we are in good shape, but I think that there are sectors of the economy that are in recession,” Bessent told CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday, characterizing the overall economic environment as in a transition period. Bessent said that, while the overall U.S. economy remains solid, high mortgage rates are still throttling the real estate market. Housing, he said, is effectively in a recession that is hitting low-end consumers the hardest because they have debts, not assets....