Less than three months ago, Newsweek declared that the “recession is over,” on the cover of its Aug. 3 issue and the networks rushed to ask experts the same question.
Well, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that a “broad majority” of people aren’t buying into that idea.
Pollsters asked, “Many economists say that using the standards they apply, the recession probably is over. Thinking about your own experience of economic conditions, would you say that from your point of view the recession is over, or not over?” Eighty-two percent of people responded saying that it’s “not over.”
But back on July 28, ABC’s “Good Morning America” brought on two experts who supported the claim that the recession was over.
Liz Ann Sonders of Charles Schwab and Mike Santoli of Barron’s were interviewed by Diane Sawyer that morning.
Sonders told Sawyer, “I do think it is real, I think that we have enough cumulative signs now that we’ve come through the worst. And not only are things just less bad, we’re actually starting to see some pockets of improvement.” Sawyer accepted Sonders’ and Santoli’s opinions without rebuttal.
Newsweek’s Daniel Gross did warn that the end of the recession wouldn’t mean instant recovery, but gave the Obama administration’s economic remedies from the $787 billion stimulus package to a huge health care bill.
The National Association of Business Economics (NABE) has said that “The great recession is over,” because the economy is “believed to have rebounded in the third quarter,” according to Reuters.
But the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) which defines recessions has yet to declare the recession over.
