It’s official: The Covid recession lasted just two months, the shortest in U.S. history – By Jeff Cox (CNBC) / July 19 2021
- The Covid-19 recession ended in April 2020, the National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday.
- That makes the two-month downturn the shortest in U.S. history.
- The NBER is recognized as the official arbiter of when recessions end and begin.
The Covid-19 recession is in the books as one of the deepest — but also the shortest — in U.S. history, the official documenter of economic cycles said Monday.
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the contraction lasted just two months, from February 2020 to the following April.
Though the drop featured a staggering 31.4% GDP plunge in the second quarter of the pandemic-scarred year, it also saw a massive snapback the following period, with previously unheard of policy stimulus boosting output by 33.4%.
“In determining that a trough occurred in April 2020, the committee did not conclude that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity,” the NBER said in a news release. “The committee decided that any future downturn of the economy would be a new recession and not a continuation of the recession associated with the February 2020 peak. The basis for this decision was the length and strength of the recovery to date.”
