Committee of Economists: The Recession Is Not Over (duh)

[amborin]

Recession Arbiters, Wary of Certifying an Upturn

" ......committee of economists, charged with determining the official turning points in the nation’s business cycles, certifies the beginnings and ends of recessions.......The committee plans to announce on Monday that it cannot yet declare an end to the recession that began in December 2007, several members indicated on Sunday. Such an acknowledgment is rare in the history of setting dates to business cycles and could affect the behavior of investors and consumers.
........the decision of the committee at a meeting on Friday reflects a lingering worry that the economy could turn downward again in a so-called double-dip recession.

snip......

But, they said, the duration and severity of the contraction have made it hard to determine with authority that a recovery has begun.

snip

Now, the committee, which is part of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonprofit group, says that the timing of an upward turn has been harder to discern than in the past. Moreover, the government has revised several statistics after they were initially released, making it more difficult to say when the economy hit bottom.

snip

......“one cannot totally rule out the unlikely possibility that the economy might resume contraction again soon.”
Under such a situation, he said, the upswing that began in the second half of 2009 would be “only an interruption in a longer contraction, and not an expansion.” But he added, “Currently, forecasters are assigning low probability to such a development.”

snip

It seems nearly certain that the present recession will end up lasting longer than the 16-month recessions of 1973-75 and 1981-82. They had been the longest downturns since the 43-month period from 1929 to 1933 that was the first phase of the Great Depression.
The committee, created in 1978, has assigned the start and end dates of economic contractions for every business cycle since 1854. It has long emphasized that it looks only backward, and does not make forecasts or predictions."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/business/economy/12recession.html?ref=todayspaper

[frazzled]

1. Misleading header

They don't say it's not over, they're just wary about certifying it as over. As you see from the quotes in the article, several of the members of the committee actually do think it's over.

Remember, this is the same committee that didn't think they should mention we WERE in a recession until 11 months after it started.

[Zynx]

2. It's pretty clear that they'll label the end at either July or August of last year.

They're just waiting for data revisions to clarify things.