Pop Quiz: When Did The Recession Begin?

Quick!

Wrong.

According to the folks who keep track of this sort of thing, the U.S. recession began a year ago -- Dec. 2007.

For the record:

The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research met by conference call on Friday, November 28. The committee maintains a chronology of the beginning and ending dates (months and quarters) of U.S. recessions. The committee determined that a peak in economic activity occurred in the economy in December 2007. The peak marks the end of the expansion that began in
November 2001 and the beginning of a recession. The expansion lasted 73 months;
the previous expansion of the 1990s lasted 120 months.

Business Cycle Dating Committee, National Bureau of Economic Research

and as a [pdf]