U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Credit: Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock.com

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the nation's economy is slowing but pointed to healthy hiring as proof that the United States is not yet in recession.

Yellen spoke on NBC's "Meet the Press" just before a slew of economic reports will be released this week that will shed light on an economy currently besieged by rampant inflation and threatened by higher interest rates. The data will cover sales of new homes, consumer confidence, incomes, spending, inflation, and overall output.

The highest-profile report will likely be Thursday, when the Commerce Department will release its first estimate of the economy's output in the April-to-June quarter. Some economists forecast that the report may show a contraction for the second quarter in a row. The economy shrank 1.6 percent in the January-to-March quarter. Two straight negative readings is considered an informal definition of a recession, though in this case economists think that's misleading.

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