Gov. Spencer Cox has instructed all state administration heads to plan for a possible recession.
“We really do prepare for downturns,” the Utah Republican said Tuesday morning during a news conference related to Utah’s economic outlook relative to other states. “We understand the business cycle, the innovation cycle.”
State officials are “constantly stress-testing our budgets,” Cox said, and he has instructed departments to plan for three levels of cuts if the country does slide into a recession.
The stock market has been on a tumultuous ride after “Liberation Day” on April 2, when President Donald Trump announced plans to implement the most sweeping tariff hikes since before the Great Depression.
After global markets fell into disorder, Trump then reversed course on the tariffs and issued a 90-day pause on many of the tariffs he had just implemented, The Associated Press reported.
While Cox did not point to a reason for recession preparations, he has repeatedly expressed skepticism over tariffs, saying during a news conference on PBS Utah last month that they are a “huge gamble.”
The National Bureau of Economic Research defines recession as a “significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months.” Business consultants with McKinsey & Co. say a recession is the result of “imbalances in the market, triggered by external or internal factors” over two consecutive quarters, or six months.
Read the full report at sltrib.com.
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.