John O'Trakoun and Adam Scavette discuss their new approach to gauging the health of the economy and the likelihood that a recession is taking place before other indicators would detect it. O'Trakoun is a senior policy economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and Scavette is a community development economic advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

Full transcript and related links: https://www.richmondfed.org/podcasts/speaking_of_the_economy/2025/speaking_2025_04_16_sos_recession_indicator