The reason that I don't know is that economists, who are the ones who come up with these terms, don't agree on what defines a recession. In most cases they assign the label to a time period retroactively. One definition that you hear a lot about is two consecutive quarters of negative Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. It's the definition that the party that's out of power (currently the Republicans) likes to use because it's easy to point at and say "Look, those idiots in charge have got us into a recession!". The problem with that definition is that hardly any economists use it. Mainly because, by itself, it doesn't really give us a clear picture of what is going on. The more popular, and more nuanced and therefore more vague and hard to pin down definition is "a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales." There's a lot of moving parts that could contribute to the big economic picture. It's not one moment in time that can be pointed at as "THAT'S the recession".
So are we in a recession? I stand by "I don't know and I don't care". "I don't know" because the definition is so nebulous and "I don't care" for more complex reasons.
The state of the amorphous monster known as The Economy is going to affect different demographics in different ways. The stock market was setting new records every week for several years, but for the most part this had no effect upon the average American. This year it slid down a little a had investors sweating - but did that same average American notice? I'd wager not. The unemployment rate is another measure of economic health; the rate has been ridiculously low the last few years, but if the majority of the employed are working multiple jobs to get by, the news isn't so good. Wages are going up, but so are prices. Whether we are in good economic times or not is an individual thing. It's also highly subjective. Studies have been done that indicate that most people believe that the economy is bad even when they personally are doing well!
How you look at current economic conditions is going to be colored by your partisan leanings. Of course if you didn't vote for the party that's currently in power you're going to focus on inflation, in particular gas and grocery prices; if you're a supporter of the incumbent administration your focus will be on continued low unemployment, continued record job creation, as well as record corporate and retail sales and profits.
Parties in power claim credit when things are going well and make excuses when things are going poorly; parties out of power point the finger of blame when things are going badly and defect attention some other thing when the economy is doing well. So how things going now? Some good, some bad. Just like always.
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