What is a recession? How can looking at past recessions give context today? The National Bureau of Economic Research officially determines the beginning and the end of recessions. In December of 2008, they announced that the current recession officially began in December of 2007. Notice how they weren’t able to identify exactly where the recession began until twelve months after it started. Historically, the committee has been able to identify a recession’s beginning and ending points between 8 and 12 months after it starts. So even if we’re headed out of it right now, we won’t know for sure until 2010. The longest “recession” ever was the Great Depression, which lasted 43 months, from 1929 to 1933. Since then, America has had 12 recessions, the longest of these being the 16-month recessions of 1973-1975 and 1981-1982. If the recession ended this fall, it will have lasted somewhere between 20-22 months. That being said, there were some major differences between prior recessions and this one. For some of you, this recession may not have felt like a “recession.” But for others, it’s been quite challenging. We’ll have to wait and see what the National Bureau says, but it’s worthy to note that we are likely passing through the longest recession since the Great Depression.