With year-over-year inflation barely easing in the latest Consumer Price Index report despite sharp increases in interest rates meant to cool the economy, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Oct. 16 that a recession is "possible but not inevitable."

Buttigieg was asked in an interview on ABC's "This Week" if the threat of recession worried him.

"Look, it's possible but not inevitable... A part of why we do see a lot of pressure on prices is that while the demand has come back, Americans have more income because Americans have jobs in this almost historically low level of unemployment," Buttigieg told anchor George Stephanopoulos, adding that it's "been hard for the supply side to keep up."

"That's a big part of what we're working on — on the infrastructure side — dealing with some of the bottlenecks we have, dealing with some of the constraints that we have in transportation infrastructure that's needed to be upgraded for decades," Buttigieg said, referring to a supply-chain crunch exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

President Joe Biden said last week that he believed an economic downturn was unlikely but conceded there could be a "very slight recession." His comments came after Jamie Dimon, the CEO of the largest bank in the United States, JPMorgan Chase CEO, warned a recession is likely within six to nine months because of Russia's war in Ukraine and historically high inflation and the rising interest rates to combat those prices.

The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates five times so far this year and is expected to again next month.