The NBER has officially declared that we ARE in recession, and that the current recession started in December of 2007.
A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in production, employment, real income, and other indicators. A recession begins when the economy reaches a peak of activity and ends when the economy reaches its trough. Between trough and peak, the economy is in an expansion.
Because a recession is a broad contraction of the economy, not confined to one sector, the committee emphasizes economy-wide measures of economic activity. The committee believes that domestic production and employment are the primary conceptual measures of economic activity.
The committee views the payroll employment measure, which is based on a large survey of employers, as the most reliable comprehensive estimate of employment. This series reached a peak in December 2007 and has declined every month since then.
That would make this recession 12-months old – older than 8 out of the last-10 recessions (chart from the NBER) post WWII, and longer than the last two. The longest measured recessions in the post-war era were 16-months long. Does it fell like we’re 3/4’s of the way through? Or that we only have a handful of months left of darkness?
