Recession may not be over, panel says

WASHINGTON – The panel of economists that dates turning points in the economy is saying what many Americans have been feeling: This recession may not be over yet.

That was essentially the message from a brief statement released Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the nonprofit group that officially certifies the start and end of U.S. business cycles.

The seven-member committee said that it “would be premature” to set a date marking the end of the last economic contraction and the beginning of an expansion.

Although recent economic data have turned up, its statement said, “many indicators are quite preliminary at this time and will be revised in coming months.”

One big factor may have been the near-double-digit unemployment rate that still plagues the economy.

“Basically, NBER is saying the coast isn’t clear yet,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com.

That doesn’t diminish the fact that Zandi and other leading economists believe that the latest recession ended sometime last summer. And the NBER is still likely to put its stamp of agreement on that view in the near future.

The NBER commonly announces its determination of recession dates a year or more after the actual turning point, said Oscar Jorda, an associate professor of economics at University of California-Davis, in a February article for the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Its “mission is not to serve as an early warning system, but to classify economic activity for the historical record,” he wrote.

Yet the timing of Monday’s statement makes it more than just academic. “It might influence policy debate and discussion a little,” Zandi said.