Fiscal and Monetary Policy

How is a recession defined? Is the U.S. currently in a recession? Explain.

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) "is widely recognized as the arbiter of starting and ending dates of U.S. recessions" (Burtless, G. April 19, 2010). As such, NBER indicates, "recessions start at the peak of a business cycle and end at the trough; and are a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales" (National Bureau of Economic Research. 2011). The last U.S. recession, coined the "Great Recession," ended "in June 2009, 18 months after the economy began sliding into a downturn in December 2007" (Murray, S. September 21, 2010) according to NBER.

While "more than eight in 10 Americans think the economy is in another recession, according to a new CNN/ORC...
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