2023 Annual U.S. Economic Outlook

Five trends to watch for 2023.
Visa economists and the Visa logo.

Key trends that will shape the economy… and your business



Theme 1: We expect a recession in 2023, but not in the way you might think

Personal consumption expenditures. See image description for details.
Line chart showing the year-over-year percent change in personal consumption expenditures (PCE), with a line for nominal PCE and a line for real PCE. The chart begins in Q1-2019 and ends in Q4-2024. Nominal PCE starts at 3.4 percent in Q1-2019, declines to -8.9 percent by Q2-2020, rises to 21.2 percent by Q2-2021, then descends to 8.5 percent by Q3-2022. It is forecast to gradually descend to 3.0 percent by Q4-2023 before increasing to 4.3 percent by Q4-2024. Real PCE begins in Q1-2019 at 1.9 percent. It falls to -9.4 percent by Q2-2020, rises to 16.6 percent by Q2-2021, then descends to 2.1 percent by Q3-2022. It is forecast to descend to 0.0 percent by Q4-2023 before rising to 2.3 percent by Q4-2024.

Theme 2: A downturn without fiscal or monetary stimulus

Theme 3: Geopolitical risks remain to global supply chains

Global supply chain pressure index. See image description for details.
Line chart of the global supply chain pressure index. The index shows pressure on the global supply chain, measures in standard deviations from the historical average. It begins in January 2019 at 0.1, falls to -0.6 by May 2019, and stays near 0.0 between September 2019 and January 2020. It then rises to 3.0 by April 2020, falls to 0.1 by October 2020, rises to 4.3 by December 2021, and falls to 1.0 by October 2022.

Theme 4: Don’t expect a quick end to the tight labor market

Composition of population. See image description for details.
Bar chart of the share of the population that is 18-64 years old ranging from a high 62 percent in 2016 to 60.9 percent and low in 2020. The bar chart is combined with a line chart showing the share of the population that is 65 and older, that ranges from a low of 15.2 percent in 2016 and a high of 16.9 percent in 2020. The share of the population that is 18-64 years old is expected to decline to 59.4 percent in 2025, decline further to 58.1 in 2030, reaching the bottom of 57.6 in 2035 and remain relatively unchanged in 2040 at 57.7 percent. The share of the population that is 65 and older is expected to rise to 19 percent in 2025, rise further to 20.6 in 2030, reaching the top of 21.4 in 2035 and remain relatively unchanged in 2040 at 21.6 percent.

Theme 5: The inflation inflection point