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Don't forget to mark your calendar. Last year's calendar, that is. The National Bureau of Economic Research officially pinpointed the end of the recession: June 2009. The NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee met over the weekend, and set the length of the recession at 18 months--the longest recession since World War II according to the NBER's measures. From the report: The committee concluded that the choice of June 2009 as the trough month for economic activity was consistent with the later trough months in the labor-market indicators-aggregate hours and employment-for two reasons. First, the strong growth of quarterly real GDP and real GDI in the fourth quarter was inconsistent with designating any month in the fourth quarter as the trough month. The committee believes that these quarterly measures of the real volume of output across the entire economy are the most reliable measures of economic activity. Second, in previous business cycles, aggregate hours and employment have frequently reached their troughs later than the NBER's trough date. In particular, in 2001-03, the trough in payroll employment occurred 21 months after the NBER trough date. In 2009, the NBER trough date is 6 months before the trough in payroll employment. In both the 2001-03 and 2009 cycles, household employment also reached its trough later than the NBER trough date. The committee noted the contrast between the June trough date for the majority of the monthly indicators and the October trough date for real personal income less transfers. There were two reasons for selecting the earlier date. The first was described above -- the fact that quarterly real GDP and GDI rose strongly in the fourth quarter. The second was that real GDI is a more comprehensive measure of income than real personal income less transfers, as it includes additional sources of income such as undistributed corporate profits. The committee's use of income-side measures, notably real GDI, is based on the accounting principle that the value of output equals the sum of the incomes that arise from producing the output. Apart from a random statistical discrepancy, real GDI satisfies that equality while real personal income does not. This means that any downturn after June 2009 would mark the start of a new recession. Read the NBER release, and get access to an Excel spreadsheet with the relevant data here .