Official Announcement: U.S. In Recession Since December 2007

It’s now official: here’s an announcement that many Americans already knew, despite the White House’s efforts for more than a year not to use the dreaded word, despite talk radio hosts saying it was merely overblown and inaccurate rhetoric by Democrats and despite Phil Gramm’s instance that those who complained were whiners with fiscal mental problems:

The United States has been in a recession since December 2007, CNN reports:

The National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday that the U.S. has been in a recession since December 2007, making official what most Americans have already believed about the state of the economy .

The NBER is a private group of leading economists charged with dating the start and end of economic downturns. It typically takes a long time after the start of a recession to declare its start because of the need to look at final readings of various economic measures.

“The committee views the payroll employment measure, which is based on a large survey of employers, as the most reliable comprehensive estimate of employment,” said the group’s statement. “This series reached a peak in December 2007 and has declined every month since then.”

The full text of the NBER is HERE.