Will the US economy be in recession at the end of 2026? [ resolves 2027-01-31 (180D) ]
polymarket: [A] single source·objective outcome methodology ›
distribution · by outcome · marks: daily snapshot
polymarket 4 markets
resolution architecture
| venue | proposer | source | citation | arbitration | class | analyst notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| polymarket | Whitelisted Proposers | not provided | not provided | Optimistic Oracle (UMA) | Other | — |
verbatim rules
polymarket
The unemployment rate is defined as the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate (total unemployed as a percent of the civilian labor force, denoted as U-3) reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Employment Situation release. The inflation rate is defined as the 12-month percent change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), before seasonal adjustment, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Consumer Price Index release.
This market will resolve according to the unemployment rate and the inflation rate published for December 2026.
If either the December 2026 inflation rate or the December 2026 unemployment rate is not published by January 31, 2027, 11:59 PM ET, this market will resolve based on the most recently published available value of the rate for a month prior to December 2026.
This market will resolve to “Soft Landing (Unemployment <5.0%, Inflation <3.5%)” if the unemployment rate is less than 5.0% and the inflation rate is less than 3.5%.
This market will resolve to “Stagflation (Unemployment ≥5.0%, Inflation ≥3.5%)” if the unemployment rate is greater than or equal to 5.0% and the inflation rate is greater than or equal to 3.5%.
This market will resolve to “Overheating (Unemployment <5.0%, Inflation ≥3.5%)” if the unemployment rate is less than 5.0% and the inflation rate is greater than or equal to 3.5%.
This market will resolve to “Slack (Unemployment ≥5.0%, Inflation <3.5%)” if the unemployment rate is greater than or equal to 5.0% and the inflation rate is less than 3.5%.
The resolution source for this market will be the Bureau of Labor Statistics, specifically its Employment Situation and Consumer Price Index releases.
platform source field
polymarket.resolutionSource → ∅ none returned sources (3) · single authority
Bureau of Labor Statistics committed source Employment Situation release from rules text Consumer Price Index release from rules text
recent wire items
- US recession by end of 2026 stays a long shot at 41% Polymarket 59%
- Polymarket puts 59% odds on the US economy being in recession by end of 2026, with 41% against.
- Soft macro data, including the July retail sales drop, is consistent with recession concern, but the 59% price suggests markets remain divided rather than alarmed.
- The S&P 500 crossing 7,800 and soft-landing trade momentum sit in tension with a market that still prices recession as the more likely outcome.
- Resolution via UMA oracle; the binary settle on official recession determination leaves meaningful timing ambiguity near year-end.
- Recession by end of 2026 stays near 50% despite soft-landing talk Polymarket 53%
- The Polymarket contract on a US recession by end of 2026 sits at 53%, keeping odds just above even despite the week's soft-landing narrative.
- Soft retail sales, cooling PPI, and subdued jobless claims are consistent with a soft landing, yet the contract above 50% shows the market has not embraced that outcome fully.
- Cross-market: Kalshi's separate US recession contract (Bureau of Economic Analysis resolution) prices the probability at just 4%, a stark gap versus Polymarket's 53%, likely reflecting differing resolution definitions and timelines.
- Resolves via Polymarket's UMA oracle based on official US GDP data.
programmatic access · four surfaces, same payload
One canonical record at every surface — embedded JSON-LD, REST, MCP, and /llms.txt.
| HTML | browsers, AI grounded search, crawlers (embedded JSON-LD @type: Dataset) | https://clearmarket.fyi/events/us-economic-state-at-the-end-of-2026/ |
| JSON | REST API for developers | https://api.clearmarket.fyi/v1/events/us-economic-state-at-the-end-of-2026 |
| MCP | agentic AI tool call (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Continue) | clearmarket.get_event("us-economic-state-at-the-end-of-2026") |
| AGENT | AI crawler discovery index | /llms.txt |
Snapshot 2026-08-04. Venue data via Kalshi + Polymarket APIs. Editorial fields (tags, editorial_notes) are ClearMarket-drafted with AI assistance under editorial review. Derived fields (venues_covered, resolution_clarity_grade, rcg_score) computed at serve time. Full per-field map in the JSON record under field_provenance.
raw JSON record · same payload returned by REST endpoint {
"event_id": "CM-EVT-Z32WPK4K45",
"slug": "us-economic-state-at-the-end-of-2026",
"question": "Will the US economy be in recession at the end of 2026?",
"category": "economics",
"tags": [
"economics",
"economy",
"inflation",
"soft-landing",
"us-economic-conditions",
"2027-resolution"
],
"venues_covered": [
"polymarket"
],
"market_count": 4,
"cumulative_volume_usd": 66344,
"resolution_clarity_grade": "A",
"rcg_score": 84,
"rcg_caps": [],
"resolution_source": null,
"resolution_source_url": null,
"source_status": "platform_named",
"source_of_record": "Bureau of Labor Statistics",
"resolution_source_list": [
{
"name": "Bureau of Labor Statistics",
"url": null,
"provenance": "clearmarket_editorial"
},
{
"name": "Employment Situation release",
"url": null,
"provenance": "clearmarket_editorial"
},
{
"name": "Consumer Price Index release",
"url": null,
"provenance": "clearmarket_editorial"
}
],
"arbitration_model": "uma_oracle",
"proposer_model": "managed_whitelist",
"field_provenance": {
"question": {
"source": "clearmarket_editorial"
},
"tags": {
"source": "clearmarket_editorial",
"ai_drafted": true
},
"resolution_clarity_grade": {
"source": "derived",
"method": "rcg_v2_7factor"
},
"venues_covered": {
"source": "derived"
}
}
}