Officially, recession ended in June 2009

WASHINGTON — It's normally a scholarly exercise for the history books — a panel of experts designating the exact point at which a serious economic downturn began or ended.

But on Monday, within minutes after the designated experts announced that the worst recession in more than half a century had ended officially in June 2009, its members felt the sting of indignant reaction from a public for whom economic pain continues to be an everyday reality.

"Hallucinatory news," one blogger snapped in response to the report by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a private nonprofit that is considered the official arbiter of economic contractions and expansions.

"I'll start believing the recession is over when I stop seeing endless numbers of people sleeping on the streets," another said.

The public reaction was only the latest evidence that, with unemployment high, job creation low, the housing market on life support and other day-to-day economic realities still bad, most Americans see little difference between the recession and current conditions.

President Obama acknowledged that widespread dissatisfaction during a town hall-style meeting broadcast on the business news channel CNBC. Alluding to the announcement about the recession's end, he remarked on the public's "understandable" frustration.

"The hole was so deep that a lot of people out there are still hurting, and probably some folks here in the audience are still having a tough time," he said. "So the question then becomes, what can we now put in place to make sure that the trend lines continue in a positive direction, as opposed to going back in the negative direction?"

During the hourlong event, Obama pressed for extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class, and insisted he has "absolutely not" vilified or enacted policies harmful to the business community — criticisms that Republican leaders have made in blaming the administration for the nation's tepid recovery and job growth.

Recessions often are described as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction, but they're more a period of falling economic activity across the economy and lasting more than a few months.

The NBER committee made its determination after considering numerous economic data and concluding that several key measures of economic activity — including total output and industrial production — pointed to June 2009 as the trough of that business cycle.

In what could provide cover to the Obama administration, struggling with the perception that it hasn't done enough to boost employment, the committee noted that the bottom in hiring usually comes months after a bottom in contraction. Employment bottomed 21 months after the 2001-03 recession and hit its low six months after the end of the latest recession, the bureau said.

The 18-month recession that started in December 2007 and ended in June of last year was the longest since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, said it was noteworthy that the panel settled on June because spending from the Recovery Act stimulus was at its peak during that month.

"One conclusion is that the stimulus played an important role in bringing the recession to an end," said Zandi, who has been an economic adviser to officials and lawmakers in both parties.

The NBER panel, in a lengthy statement that seemed to anticipate public reaction to its decision, took pains to note that a determination of the end of the recession doesn't mean the economy has returned to vigorous growth.

"The committee did not conclude that economic conditions since that month have been favorable or that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity," the statement said.

The committee said its determination was based on the length and strength of the recovery to date. It said the nation's gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services produced in a year, reached its low point in the second quarter of 2009.

But with new and more recent indicators pointing to a slowdown, the panel, which usually dates beginnings and ends of recessions about 12 months after the fact, took a little longer this time before issuing a final say.

"It's been such a weak recovery that they waited to make sure they could call it a trough," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago.

The NBER determination is important in that it marks an end to a recession that could have been much worse, she said, but it doesn't mean a whole lot to Main Street. "You can't escape the reality that it's a subpar recovery."

Indeed, for most ordinary Americans, what may matter most are jobs, the value of their homes and their incomes. On those fronts, the recession hardly looks like it has ended for many people. Housing sales and prices remain depressed, and while the economy has added jobs since the start of the year, they have been far below the levels needed to bring down the unemployment rate, currently at 9.6 percent.

Income gains also have lagged.

Robert Hall, a Stanford economics professor and one of seven panel members who deliberated on the matter, followed the immediate reaction on the Internet to his group's announcement.

"At least half of them excoriate us for saying that the recession is over," Hall said in an e-mail. "But we are only saying that things started to get better in June 2009, not that times are good."

Information from McClatchy Newspapers is included

in this report.