Bessent says high US interest rates may have caused housing recession

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks with reporters at the White House. (AP)

Parts of the US economy, particularly housing, may already be in recession because of high interest rates, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday, repeating his call for the Federal Reserve to accelerate rate cuts.

“I think that we are in good shape, but I think that there are sectors of the economy that are in recession,” Bessent said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “And the Fed has caused a lot of distributional problems with their policies.”

Bessent said that, although the overall US economy remains solid, high mortgage rates still hinder the real estate market. Housing, he said, is effectively in a recession that is hitting low-end consumers the hardest because they have debts, not assets