The U.S. is Halfway to a Recession

According to statistics released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis:

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- decreased at an annual rate of 0.3 percent in the third quarter of 2008, (that is, from the second quarter to the third quarter), according to advance estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter, real GDP increased 2.8 percent.

The standard definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of declining real GDP. We will know by the end of January whether or not the U.S. is 'officially' in a recession.

That being said, I think the media gets a little too caught up in the "is it, or isn't it?" question. Had, instead, real GDP instead rose at an annual rate of 0.3 percent in the third quarter of 2008 then we wouldn't meet the first part of the recession criteria. But there is not a great deal of difference between a 0.3 percent rise and a 0.3 percent fall, given that both are not statistically different than zero and either figure would indicate that the economy is quite weak.