The US came out of April no stronger economically than we entered it.

New job creation for April and March were muted and the GDP numbers for Q1 and Q2 are barely scratching the surface of growth.

In an election year, where it’s always about the economy, this does not bode well for the Democrats. You can call me jaded, but we are probably already in a recession, but no one will call it right now in Washington.

Look at the Industrial Production numbers for the last three quarters, all are down in year-over-year comparisons. The last two readings are down quarter-over-quarter as well.

This is highly indicative of a recession. In fact the US economy has never had these trends in IP without being in a recession.

So how long before the numbers come out?

The end of the month we get a second revision on Q1, which currently sits at 0.5% on annualized basis. Meaning Q1 growth was 0.075%. Doesn’t take much to get that to fall below zero if you are true to the numbers. But that’s another story.

The final revised Q2 GDP numbers will not hit until the end of September, so October could be interesting, but there’s plenty of time for the Obama Administration to deploy “helicopter money” to thwart the sagging economy.