The National Bureau of Economic Research (motto - we predicted Lincoln would be shot, but not until 1953) has announced that we've been in a recession since December 2007.Wow - that's a bold move.
An NBER committee said that they thought we might have been in a recession for awhile now, but wanted to wait until they had enough information, just to be sure.
The committee does not judge a recession as two consecutive quarterly declines in gross domestic product; rather, it examines quarterly data along with four key monthly economic indicators: employment, incomes, industrial output and sales.
Employment and incomes peaked in December, industrial output peaked in January, and sales peaked in June, the NBER committee said.
The committee's definition of a recession is as follows: "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."
The NBER is also predicting that the recession will end someday, because it always does.
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