Posted by Marcelo Perez

What everybody feared and most already assumed was confirmed today, as the National Bureau of Economic Research released a report on the state of the economy. According to the NBER, the United States economy is officially in a recession, which began in December of last year. Payroll employment peaked that month and has declined every month since then, shedding some 1.2 million jobs on its way down.

Other series considered by the committee—including real personal income less transfer payments, real manufacturing and wholesale-retail trade sales, industrial production, and employment estimates based on the household survey—all reached peaks between November 2007 and June 2008.

The NBER is responsible, among other things, for determining the dates of business cycles:

The committee determined that a peak in economic activity occurred in the U.S. economy in December 2007. The peak marks the end of the expansion that began in November 2001 and the beginning of a recession. The expansion lasted 73 months; the previous expansion of the 1990s lasted 120 months.

A silver lining? Yes. This report tells us that the recession began late last year, meaning that we’ve been through this recession for almost a full year now. And according to the NBER, from 1945-2007, out of 11 recessions identified, the average duration of a recession was 10 months (Peak to Trough).

Usually, a recession becomes official not at the beginning stages, but when we’ve been through most of it and are in the midst of a recovery.