Recession Over
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The recession ended in June 2009, making it the longest downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, theNational Bureau of Economic Research said on Monday.
The NBER, considered the arbiter of U.S. recessions, said its declaration did not mean the economy had “returned to operating at normal capacity” and cautioned that economic activity sometimes remains below normal well into expansion.
President Barack Obama, under pressure to speed up the pace of recovery and drive down unemployment as November congressional elections near, said the official end of the recession did not change the grim reality for many people.
“Economists may say that the recession officially ended last year, ” Obama said. “Obviously for the millions of people who are still out of work, people who have seen their home values decline, people who are struggling to pay their bills day to day, it’s still very real for them.”
The NBER’s business cycle dating committee, a private sector group composed of academic economists, is notorious for taking its time in declaring the start and end of recessions.
The committee said it waited to make its decision this time because it wanted to review revised data on national income, released August 27, to get a clearer reading on the path of economic output in 2009.
After a meeting in April, some of the panel’s members said they were concerned the economy could dip back into negative territory. In Monday’s announcement, the NBER said any fresh downturn would mark a new recession, not a continuation of the one that began in December 2007.
“The basis for this decision was the length and strength of the recovery to date, ” the NBER said.