Thread: Recession?

It is an interesting question, if we're in a Recession.

First off...Inflation does NOT equal Recession. We had high inflation in the late 60's and again mid-late 70's but no Recession as GDP stayed high and unemployment trended lower.
There is a complex formula that relies on 2 consecutive Qts of Neg GDP, accompanied by "significant" or "sharp rising" job losses....and 4 other economic variable described further below.
If you look at a chart of the past half century, you'll see that every "certified" Recession (Grey Bar) was accompanied by sharply rising unemployment rate (blue line).
Currently not only are we NOT seeing unemployment rise, but we're actually ADDING tons of jobs still,(200-400K jobs per month on avg).

recessions figure - 032522.jpg

So technically, we would probably not reach full "Recession criteria until that is met. Not new criteria, it seems to have been in place for a long time.
This Recession Definition is from an article in 2009...not something that "suddenly changed".
https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/h...009/200902.pdf

"The NBER measures peak-to-trough declines in economic activity through a number of macroeconomic
variables. While the popular definition of a recession is “two consecutive quarters of negative real gross
domestic product (GDP) growth,” the NBER does not strictly abide by this designation (note 2). Instead,
the committee broadly defines a recession as a “significant decline in economic activity spreading across
the economy, lasting more than a few months.” The committee considers a wide range of indicators with
particular emphasis on payroll employment and several measures of domestic production and income, such
as gross domestic product, gross domestic income, and industrial production (note 3). A number of other
monthly indicators are also considered, as the NBER focuses on recognizing broad trends across all sectors
of the economy (note 4). Since peaks in payroll employment tend to coincide with peaks in the business
cycle, it appears that the NBER places significant importance on employment"
"