Recession over? Sure doesn’t feel like it

John W. Schoen Senior producer • Profile • E-mail

Even though the nation's economy showed growth in the third quarter for the first time in more than a year, don't assume that the Great Recession of 2008-09 is over.

For a reality check, try asking Larry Van Sant, who owns a plumbing and heating business in Mount Airy, Md.

“I don’t think this recession is over by any means,” said Van Sant. He said business is so slow he has had to lay off 68 of his 168 employees. “We normally can look and tell it’s over before anyone announced it’s over.”

Van Sant is one of hundreds of msnbc.com readers who sent e-mails disputing the view of many mainstream economists who say the recession, which began in December 2007, might well have ended over the summer. And with unemployment at a 26-year high of 9.8 percent, the skepticism is understandable — despite figures released Thursday showing the nation's gross domestic product grew at a 3.5 percent pace in the latest quarter, the best showing in two years.

“I get upset every time I hear or read in the news that the recession is over and the economy is recovery,” said Janice Benson, owner of a small real estate office in Bend, Ore., where she lives with her husband and son. “The president’s stimulus package only helped the banks and a few special groups. It did not help mainstream America.”

President Barack Obama took an optimistic, but cautious, tone about the GDP data. In remarks Thursday to a small business group, he said the economy "has come a long way" since early this year, but added "we have a long way to go to fully restore our economy."

“In my view, the economy has not picked up,” said Zoltan Rab, a research analyst in Greensboro, N.C., who lost his job in May 2008 and was out of work until December. "The weak state of the economy is quite visible. I think it is simply irresponsible to make average citizens believe otherwise.”

Part of the disconnect between upbeat forecasts and the skepticism expressed by many readers  starts with the definition of a recession.

Contrary to popular misconception, a recession is not necessarily over even if the economy shows two consecutive quarters of positive growth as measured by gross domestic product. The start and end dates of U.S. recessions are established by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research organization whose conclusions on business cycles are widely accepted. The NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee looks at a variety of statistics — including GDP, employment, and industrial production — before determining the beginning or end of a recession.

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Jeffrey Frankel, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the committee, said he and other analysts want to see signs of a convincing and lasting recovery before declaring the recession is over. Although he thinks the recession ended in July, he also believes there is a one in three chance the recovery may stall out next year.

“If a new downturn made us reconsider, we’d call that part of the same recession,” he said. “So we wait.”

(Click here for the committee's comments on the current recession and answers to frequently asked questions.)

For many Americans, their view of the economy depends on where they live. Just as some parts of the country have been harder hit than others by the downturn, the recovery will be stronger in some regions and lag in others.

The latest Adversity Index from Moody's Economy.com and msnbc.com shows that only one in five of the 384 metro areas in the United States has moved from recession into the "recovery" category, based on August data on jobs, manufacturing and housing. The recession is "moderating" in another 270 areas, meaning the contraction in those economies is slowing; some 35 metro areas are still in full-blown recession.

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