Here’s how to know if we’re in a recession, and it’s not what you think

Everyone who cares knows that recessions happen when there are two consecutive quarters of negative growth — everyone, that is, except for the people who actually decide when the economy is in recession.

For those folks, at the National Bureau of Economic Research, the definition of recession is much squishier.

Officially, the NBER defines recession as “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months.” The bureau’s economists, in fact, profess not even to utilize gross domestic product, the broadest measure of activity, as a primary barometer.