The Cleveland Fed has a short report on how to date a recession ( don't forget the flowers ), and predict its demise. The report is full of useful data, and helps illuminate why the National Bureau of Economic Research declared that the current recession started in December of 2007 when we didn't see negative GDP until the third quarter of 2008. The simple answer is that the committee's definition is both broader and less precise: "A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales." Read the report here .