Recession's over? Says who?

• Author: Heffes, Ellen M.
• Position: Editor's page

Much publicity was given to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's Sept. 1 5 comment on the state of the economy: "From a technical perspective, the recession is very likely over at this point," he said. Indeed, commentators on cable networks are declaring it's over. And, speaking in New York in September, a well-respected professor emeritus of international economics and finance from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business asserted, "the recession ended July 4."

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Yet, for many businesses--particular smaller ones seeking capital--the recession is far from over. For finance executives (and others) who've lost jobs due to downsizing and college graduates who can't get jobs due to limited hiring, the recession is not over. Even Bernanke conceded, when speaking at the Brookings Institution, that "unemployment will be slow to come down. It will come down, but it may take some time."

Whether the recession is over is more than charts or graphs or economists' numbers and calculations. Whether it's over or not depends on how you define "recession" and where you currently reside in society. A recession is widely defined as a period of two quarters of negative GDP growth. The National Bureau of Economic Research, a private organization, effectively decides when recessions occur, and the actual dating process is determined by judgment rather than a formal rule.

Can a recession be over if business earnings are due to cuts, spending and hiring are still down significantly and dropping in some cases, and unemployment is flirting with 10 percent, the highest it's been in more than 26 years (with certain areas into double-digit unemployment)?

Can the recession be over if the economy is being propped up with government debt and stimulus money that is making a large part of the populous nervous about pushing this tremendous debt to future generations?

While the debate over where the recession...