“We’re not going to be in a recession, in my view,” Biden said. “The unemployment rate is still one of the lowest we’ve had in history. It’s in the 3.6% area. We still find ourselves with people investing.”

“My hope is we go from this rapid growth to a steady growth, so we’ll see some coming down. God willing, I don’t think we’re going to see a recession,” he added.

Yes, but: The White House has argued that even if the number turns out to show a second straight quarter of negative growth, the U.S. economy was almost certainly not in a recession in the first half of this year, Axios’ Neil Irwin reports.

In following other definitions of a recession, the White House Council of Economic Advisers recently contended that other economic indicators — such as employment, inflation-adjusted consumer spending and industrial production — do not point to a recession.