The Commerce Department released figures on Thursday showing that the American economy expanded at a annual pace of 3.5 percent from July through September. That growth for an entire quarter would mean that the recession has ended - except that the "official" numbers come from the private-sector National Bureau of Economic Research. They will generally take months to make a thorough, unchanging assessment of the economic conditions before issuing a formal declaration on growth.
And while we've seen many economic figures revised well after their release, it would seem strange for the government's initial numbers to be off by 3.5 percentage points. Over the past five years, we have had only four quarters with a GDP growth rate that high.
Assuming this is the real conclusion to the recession, it's a welcome end. The four consecutive down quarters mark the longest stretch of declines since these records started to be kept in 1947. The 3.8 percent contraction in the economy for the 12 months ending in June was the worst in 70 years.
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