The mini-depression continues even though The Great Recession is over

Is The Great Recession really over? The "recession" is officially over, as the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Business Cycle Dating Committee (BCDC) tells us, as of June 2009, but "The Great Recession" was always a packaging of more than just the technical recession, including the raw level of unemployment, the slow pace of job creation, stagnant incomes, etc. I have been saying that we are in a mini-depression, not as dramatic as The Great Depression in the 1930's, but more dramatic than a mere recession. So, to be specific, the recession portion of the mini-depression is definitely over, but the rest of the mini-depression remains intact and likely to linger for years, maybe even five to ten years.

The Great Depression, lasting from 1929 to 1941, actually contained two separate recessions, the first from 1929 to 1933 and the second from 1937 to 1938. The rest of the time, although still in a depression, the years 1933 to 1937 and 1938 to 1941, the economy was in recovery. So, you can certainly have recovery in the midst of a depression.

Similarly, we have exited from recession, are in recovery, but remain in a mini-depression - in my view.

As far as "The Great Recession", a moniker that is very popular with a lot of pundits, people are in a bind since they can no longer technically say that we are in a recession, but they clearly want to refer to the lingering effects of the recent recession. It will be interesting to see how they resolve this discrepancy, either by coining a new term ("The Not-So-Great Recovery"?) or maybe remain in denial and stick with a technically inaccurate term. I am sticking with "mini-depression."

-- Jack Krupansky