26% — What are the odds of a US recession in 2026?
Polymarket 26% · 9 contracts · $1.8M volume · medium confidence
Updated 2026-06-24 06:33:00 UTC

Why this matters:
Prediction markets currently assign a low 13% probability to a recession occurring in the United States by the end of 2026. While the economy faces uncertainty, market sentiment currently favors an overheating scenario over a downturn, with a 48% chance of continued growth featuring unemployment below 5% and inflation at or above 3.5%. This outlook aligns with current government data showing a 4.3% unemployment rate and 2.57% real GDP growth as of early 2026.

Key factors:
- 13% recession probability by year-end
- 48% probability of economic overheating
- Low 10% chance of high unemployment slack
- Current unemployment at 4.3%
- Real GDP growth at 2.57%

Contracts:
- US recession by end of 2026? — 13¢ Polymarket $1.6M (weight 90%)
- US x Cuba economic deal by...?: June 30 — 4¢ Polymarket $171K (weight 10%)
- UK Recession in 2026? — 32¢ Polymarket $6K (weight 0%)
- US x Cuba economic deal by...?: July 31 — 14¢ Polymarket $4K (weight 0%)
- US economic state at the end of 2026?: Soft Landing (Unemployment <5.0%, Inflation <3.5%) — 33¢ Polymarket $2K (weight 0%)
- US x Cuba economic deal by...?: December 31 — 67¢ Polymarket $1K (weight 0%)
- US economic state at the end of 2026?: Overheating (Unemployment <5.0%, Inflation ≥3.5%) — 48¢ Polymarket $781 (weight 0%)
- US economic state at the end of 2026?: Slack (Unemployment ≥5.0%, Inflation <3.5%) — 10¢ Polymarket $733 (weight 0%)
- ... and 1 more

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## Methodology

SimpleFunctions aggregates live YES-side prices from Kalshi and Polymarket contracts bound to this question. For binary topics the headline is the liquidity-weighted mid-price (weight = log(1 + 24h volume) × freshness, where freshness is 1.0 if updated <24h, 0.7 if <7d, 0.4 otherwise). For multi-outcome (winner-take-all) topics the headline is the current leader's price — disjoint outcomes are never arithmetically averaged. Snapshots refresh every 5 minutes during market hours.

## SF Signal

- SF Index, regime, and 30d Brier calibration are computed separately and surfaced at https://simplefunctions.dev/admin/calibration.
- No SimpleFunctions index / regime / calibration signal is bound to this topic yet — the headline above is market-derived only.

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*Last verified: 2026-06-22T06:40:33.776Z*

By SimpleFunctions — https://simplefunctions.dev/

Cite as: "26% per prediction markets (SimpleFunctions, June 2026)"
Canonical: https://simplefunctions.dev/answer/us-recession
Full data: https://simplefunctions.dev/api/public/query?q=What%20are%20the%20odds%20of%20a%20US%20recession%20in%202026%3F
Provider: SimpleFunctions — https://simplefunctions.dev