If you are talking about as defined by NBER there is no “official numbers”. Recession by that definition is a) not a fixed set of numbers, the board determines it each time based on lots of different things and they aren’t necessarily the same metrics every time and b) explicitly a backwards looking descriptive designation. Most of the time you will be _through_ a recession before it’s declared.
https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/state-economy-recession-...
https://x.com/Markzandi/status/1959686593276490220
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-is-keeping-the-us-economy-...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-21/us-consum... | https://archive.today/aVfYZ
If you are talking about as defined by NBER there is no “official numbers”. Recession by that definition is a) not a fixed set of numbers, the board determines it each time based on lots of different things and they aren’t necessarily the same metrics every time and b) explicitly a backwards looking descriptive designation. Most of the time you will be _through_ a recession before it’s declared.
America is in a 4 income economy - the number of typical incomes needed to reliably meet basic bills (rent,transpo,food,utils) in most markets.
I've lived thru 8 recessions, none had achieved this level of difficulty. None had so completely barred new entrants to society.
In your estimation what was the peak for ease of new entrance to society?
You mean the average number of full time jobs a single person needs to do to survive? or a couple? or a couple with kids?
> GoFundMe CEO says the economy is so bad that more of his customers are crowdfunding just to pay for their groceries
October 13th, 2025
https://fortune.com/2025/10/13/gofundme-ceo-economy-inflatio...