We’re unlikely to go into recession in 2016 and the six-year economic expansion should continue. There’s only about a 15 percent chance of a recession next year because the economy has a lot of underlying strength, no dangerous debt levels and consumers’ disposable income levels are as strong as they have been in several decades.

That’s what officials said on Tuesday at MFS’s Year End Investment Roundtable. MFS officials said that gasoline and other energy costs as a percentage of disposable income is now about half of what it was in 1960. And it is about a third of what it was at the end of the 1970s. All that means, they added, is that the expansion will continue in 2016.

“We’re not flashing red as far as the recession goes and I think the next 12 months will be kind of more of the same,” predicted MFS Chief Economist Erik Weisman.

MFS officials also noted that private-sector growth has been strong. They said that household debt levels have been very low.

“Household debt service is the lowest that it has been in 40 years,” according to Chief Investment Strategist James Swanson. He said the private economy has been growing at a faster rate than reported when one considers the deleterious effects of the strong dollar as well as crashing energy prices.

Swanson added that he doesn’t “see the excesses” that lead to the last recession. Swanson also said the private sector is leading and sustaining the business expansion.

“Over the last six years, the expansion has not been caused by fiscal stimulus but through a private sector expansion,” according to Swanson.

Perhaps the American expansion could be interrupted by Chinese problems?

Swanson says the American economy would “not be affected that much” by problems in China. It would be “very unlikely,” Swanson added, that a Chinese problem will lead to economic stagnation in the United States.

But what about a Federal Reserve rate hike? Could that interrupt the expansion?

Swanson, who along with his colleague said that they thought the Fed would finally raise rates next month, nevertheless added that raising interest rates would have “little effect” on the expansion.