By mid‑2024, neither the official U.S. business‑cycle arbiters nor the broad community of professional economists had concluded that a new recession was underway, let alone one that had already begun in mid‑2023.

• The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which is the standard reference for dating U.S. recessions, still listed the last recession as running from February–April 2020; its expansions‑and‑contractions table shows no new peak or recession start after that date as of its latest update, meaning no 2022–2023 recession has been officially dated. (nber.org)
• Data for 2023 show solid economic performance rather than recessionary conditions: real GDP grew about 2.5% in 2023, unemployment averaged a very low 3.6%, employment hit record highs, and real wages rose slightly after inflation. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Entering and through early‑to‑mid 2024, major forecasts and official outlooks commonly described a likely or ongoing soft landing—slower growth but no recession. The Congressional Budget Office projected a soft landing in 2024 with continued (albeit slower) growth and disinflation rather than a downturn. (axios.com) Federal Reserve officials similarly grew more confident that the economy would avoid recession. (investopedia.com)
• Ratings agencies and large forecasters revised earlier recession calls to “no recession” or low odds of recession in 2024, again implying that they did not view a recession as already in progress dating back to 2023. (forbes.com)
• More broadly, commentary in early 2024 characterized the U.S. as a standout case of reducing inflation while maintaining growth—often explicitly framed as achieving or nearing a soft landing rather than being in a recession that had begun the prior year. (en.wikipedia.org)

While a few dissenting voices claimed the U.S. was in a “soft” or “rolling” recession, the mainstream professional and official view by mid‑2024 was that the U.S. had not entered a new recession in 2023. Therefore, Sacks’s prediction that economists a year later would say “the recession had already begun” is best judged wrong.