Experts Won’t Say If Recession Is Underway

The arbiters of the ups and downs of the U.S. economy may have concluded what most economists have been saying for the last two months, that the U.S. is in recession. If they did, they’re not saying.

The six economists who make up the committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research that dates U.S. business cycles talked by telephone about whether statistics on employment, industrial production, wholesale and retail trade and personal incomes point to the first recession since 1990-91.

“There was a discussion, and there will be no news one way or another this weekend,” said Martin Feldstein, president of the organization and a member of the dating committee.

Although the committee has no official standing, most economists and U.S. policymakers rely on its declarations.