Defining the Recession

Background

Jeffrey Coolidge / Getty Images

The New York Times writes there is no official definition of a recession, and no official body to announce when one starts or ends. Still, recessions are often described as two or more quarters of a declining gross domestic product (GDP).

The National Bureau of Economic Research, a private, non-partisan group based in Cambridge, Mass., does not define a recession based on declining GDP.

“Rather, 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.” – National Bureau of Economic Research

The NBER says the latest recession began December 1, 2007 and ended in June 2009.

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March 21, 2012

Boise Air Travel By The Numbers

For the last week, StateImpact Idaho has been reporting on recent cuts to flights in and out of Boise. The guiding question: will airlines’ cutbacks affect Idaho’s prospects for an economic turnaround? Airlines are, of course, responding to broader economic conditions when they determine to stop offering a flight between, say, Boise and Los Angeles. […]

March 20, 2012

Direct Sales Companies Saw Spike In Sellers During Recession

One of Idaho’s fast growing companies is Scentsy. They sell wickless candles and personal care products. It’s a direct sales company, meaning independent consultants sell products largely through home parties (think The Pampered Chef). The Direct Selling Association is a trade group for some of the country’s most well known direct sales companies like Avon, […]

Soaring Fuel Prices Mean Fewer Flights For Boise

A story in today’s news drives home the large forces at play when Southwest decides — as it recently did — to stop making flights from Boise to Seattle, Salt Lake and Reno. The International Air Transport Association, a trade group representing major passenger and cargo lines, says industry earnings will probably drop to $3 […]

Flight Cuts Hit Midsize Cities As They Try For A Turnaround

Boise resident C.K. Haun has this routine down. He may live in Idaho, but he’s a senior engineer at Apple. Long before the sun is up, he arrives at the Boise Airport, to catch his regular flight to San Jose. “I can do this by autopilot now,” he says. “Most of the TSA people know […]

March 16, 2012

As Airlines Drop Flights, Boise Business Leaders Target Air Service

StateImpact is considering the potential economic effects of the shrinking number of flights in and out of Boise. As we mentioned in a post yesterday, there will be 20 percent fewer seats leaving Boise this summer than last. The Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce is targeting the issue through a new travel committee. Early this week, I […]

March 15, 2012

Analyst: Fewer Flights From Boise Can’t Be Good For Business

Frontier Airlines recently announced it won’t resume service between Boise and Denver this spring. Early this year, Southwest discontinued its flights from Boise to Seattle, Salt Lake and Reno. An American Airlines affiliate has cancelled its service from Boise to Los Angeles. The net effect is that there will be 20 percent fewer seats leaving […]

March 14, 2012

New Reports Show Staggering Pace Of Foreclosure Signing

Four hundred. That’s how many foreclosure-related documents an Ally bank employee might have processed every day at the height of the foreclosure crisis. At Bank of America, the rate was a stunning 75 to 80 per hour. Those figures come from a set of government reports released this week. According to The Wall Street Journal, […]

March 13, 2012

The Broken Link Between Jobs and Growth

As the jobless rate continues to fall, a lot of people have found themselves wondering how the U.S. economy is producing jobs when it’s actually not growing all that much. Planet Money sums up the puzzle with this pithy question: “What’s The Opposite Of A Jobless Recovery?” As background, The Wall Street Journal offers this […]

March 8, 2012

Jobs For Idaho Teens Deteriorated In Last Decade

In reporting StateImpact’s recent story on Idaho’s high teen unemployment rate, one of the people I consulted was Andrew Sum, of Northeastern University in Boston. He’s an economist, and an expert on the youth labor market. Here, he explains the magnitude of the shifts Idaho has seen in terms of teen employment. Q: First, you […]

March 7, 2012

More Bad News For Idaho Teens: Young Workers’ Pay Takes A Hit

Young workers’ wages have fallen off in the last ten years, a period that a new report terms the “lost decade.” D.C.-based think tank the Economic Policy Institute analyzed entry-level workers’ earnings going back to 1979. “From 2000 to 2011, a period of disappointing overall wage growth, wages actually fell among every entry-level group regardless […]