With a recovery like this, who needs a recession?

 

According to The National Bureau of Economic Research, the U.S. economy has officially been out of the Great Recession for 15 months, since things bottomed out in June 2009. But regardless of the fact that economic growth is technically on the plus side, job growth has been anemic during the so-called recovery. In fact, the economy has lost 329,000 more jobs than it has created since June 2009.

 

The situation is not likely to improve much the rest of this year, based on current growth rates. Many economists say the economy needs to grow by about 2.5% to keep the unemployment rate—currently at 9.6%—from rising. But economic activity stumbled along at only 1.6% in the second quarter of 2010, and the third quarter numbers probably won’t be much better.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Recession May Be Over, but Joblessness Remains (by Catharine Rampell, New York Times)

Great Recession Ended in June 2009, But Who Knew? (by Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy Newspapers)

Business Cycle Dating Committee, National Bureau of Economic Research (National Bureau of Economic Research)