Key question: Did the U.S. economy experience a recession in 2022 as formally classified by standard arbiters (especially the NBER)?

1. NBER has not declared a 2022 recession. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which is widely treated as the official arbiter of U.S. business cycles, did not date a U.S. recession in 2022. Its listed recessions jump from the COVID recession of February–April 2020 with no additional recession through and including 2022.
2. GDP did fall for two quarters, but that was not treated as a recession. U.S. real GDP contracted in Q1 and Q2 of 2022, but grew again afterward; despite this, the NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee explicitly did not designate 2022 as a recessionary period, largely because employment, income, and industrial production remained strong and continued to grow.
3. Consensus by major institutions and media (e.g., Federal Reserve commentary, Congressional Research Service, and major financial press) as of 2023–2025 consistently refer to a 2022 slowdown or growth scare, not an official U.S. recession, and clarify that no NBER recession was recorded for 2022.

Because the prediction specifically said the U.S. was headed into a “serious downturn or recession” that would be (in effect) recognized as such in 2022, and the U.S. did not have an officially dated recession in 2022, the prediction is wrong.