Now They Tell Us: U.S. Officially in Recession

By Scott Bittle on December 1, 2008

The National Bureau of Economic Research has spoken: the U.S. has been in a recession for a year. Polls tell us that a lot of Americans think the economists are late to the party on this one.

The bureau, an independent organization that's accepted as the official arbiter of economic data in the United States, actually doesn't follow the classic rule of thumb for recessions, which is two consecutive quarters where the economy shrinks. Their process considers a lot of other factors, which you can read about here. For a little historical perspective, you can check out this chart of economic growth.

But it's a rough year for the economy, and most surveys show the American public decided we were in a recession some months ago. Even back in January, 45 percent told the Gallup poll the country was in recession; by March that was up to 76 percent. Overall attitudes about the economy are very negative, with three-quarters having negative views and the same number thinking things are getting worse. To think about some of the options for getting the economy back on track, have a look at our Citizen's Survival Kit on the economy.

Tags: depression, Economy, Energy, global financial crisis, recession, unemployment

Re: Now They Tell Us: U.S. Officially in Recession

On February 21, 2009 AryanK says:

Recession is one of the words that is being tossed around with increasing frequency. Due to recession, consumers and businesses are forced to get easy loans to relieve themselves from the stress brought by recession. But easy loans are not good enough with banks. Alan Greenspan, the former Fed chairman, who has stated that a period of increased nationalized banking is probably in order to combat the recession. The banks have already gotten quite a bit in government easy loans anyway. He has said that the government needs to help absorb the toxic assets that the banks have taken on, and help them weather the storm. He also says that actions of this sort are cyclical in nature. Well, regardless of that, it still seems that we'd be playing serious favorites if we neglect to create more jobs and just give giant multinationals easy loans. http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2009/02/18/easy-loans-nationaliz...