Recession or Recovery?

The National Bureau of Economics on Friday decided the country is still in Recession. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a majority of February's state and local unemployment rates to be higher than those a year ago. However, evidence that the Labor Force (people working PLUS people looking for work) is growing indicates Americans are currently showing increased confidence in the U.S. Economy.

It might be assumed that many workers terminated due to restructure and job elimination have ridden out their severance and State Unemployment Benefit packages and have decided to reenter the workforce. March reports indicated only minor gains in payroll employment across most industries, with employment in financial and information sectors still decreasing.

With such a high unemployment rate still pervading the country, "Recovery" does seem a bit of an optimistic term to characterize our economy. The NBER might well be right. Regardless, however economists do choose to characterize it, resource management programs such as Supplemental Unemployment Benefit Plans which better utilized funds available to companies during times of restructuring could have allowed for the unemployment rate to grow less astronomically, and perhaps the NBER would be now voting for "Recovery" as its proper current name.