54% — What are the odds of a US recession in 2026?
Kalshi 69% · Polymarket 21% · 22 contracts · $1.8M volume · high confidence
Updated 2026-08-11 11:12:01 UTC

Cross-venue gap: 48pp (Kalshi higher)

Why this matters:
Market evidence is not negligible: kalshi "China Nominal GDP in 2026?" 95¢; kalshi "Germany Nominal GDP in 2026?" 98¢; kalshi "Germany Nominal GDP in 2026?" 97¢. Resolution windows can differ across venues, so treat the odds as contract-specific rather than one combined probability.

Key factors:
- 4.1% unemployment rate
- 2.1% YoY real GDP growth
- Positive 0.47% yield curve
- 199,000 initial jobless claims
- Stable Fed Funds Rate of 3.63%

Contracts:
- US recession by end of 2026? — 8¢ Polymarket $1.7M (weight 94%)
- US economic state at the end of 2026?: Soft Landing (Unemployment <5.0%, Inflation <3.5%) — 55¢ Polymarket $31K (weight 2%)
- US economic state at the end of 2026?: Overheating (Unemployment <5.0%, Inflation ≥3.5%) — 39¢ Polymarket $24K (weight 1%)
- UK Recession in 2026? — 17¢ Polymarket $8K (weight 0%)
- France Nominal GDP in 2026? — 2¢ Kalshi $6K (weight 0%)
- France Nominal GDP in 2026? — 83¢ Kalshi $5K (weight 0%)
- France Nominal GDP in 2026? — 2¢ Kalshi $5K (weight 0%)
- Germany Nominal GDP in 2026? — 88¢ Kalshi $4K (weight 0%)
- ... and 12 more

---

## 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.

---

*Last verified: 2026-08-11T06:40:52.392Z*

By SimpleFunctions — https://simplefunctions.dev/

Cite as: "54% per prediction markets (SimpleFunctions, August 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