U.S. RECESSION SHORTEST EVER
The U.S. recession touched off by the coronavirus lasted only two months, ending with a low point reached in April 2020 after the start of a sharp drop in economic activity in March of that year, the U.S. Business Cycle Dating Committee announced Monday. The committee of macroeconomists said that while the country had by no means gotten back to normal operating capacity, indicators of both jobs and production “point clearly to April 2020 as the month of the trough,” with a rebound beginning in May. The recovery was so rapid the committee said it was only “the unprecedented magnitude of the decline” that led members to consider what happened to be a recession. The announcement makes the pandemic recession by far the shortest on record, at two months only a third as long as the six-month downturn at the start of 1980.