EXPLAINER: How do we know when a recession has begun?

WASHINGTON (AP) — By one common definition, the U.S. economy is on the cusp of a recession.

Yet, that definition isn’t the one that counts.

On Thursday, when the government estimates the gross domestic product for the April-June period, some economists think it may show the economy shrank for a second straight quarter.

That would meet a longstanding assumption for when a recession has begun.

But economists say that wouldn’t mean that a recession had begun, because during those same six months when the economy might have contracted, businesses and other employers added a prodigious 2.7 million jobs.

That’s more than were gained in most entire years before the pandemic.

In other words, although the economy is failing in certain areas, it is exceeding in others- making the term “recession” more difficult to place on the economy as a whole.