The U.S. entered a recession in December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.Get Breaking News by e-mail cnn.com Breaking News 12:32 PM ET: It’s Official: U.S. Economy in Recession nyt.com
I don't understand how that works. The definition of a recession is 2 consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, no? We had positive growth in Q4 2007, Q1 2008, and Q2 2008. Q3 2008 was the first negative growth, and I assume Q4 will be the same. Wouldn't that mean we entered the recession in Q3 2008, or at the earliest, sometime in the middle of Q2?
maybe they are counting from the beginning of the shrinkage. Also I wouldn't discount the possiblity of them using downwardly revised GDP figures.