It hit like a derailed train and was hugely destructive, but it was short-lived, The Washington Post reported. The recession that broke out with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic lasted just two months, officially ending in April 2020. That makes it the shortest downturn on record, according to the committee of economists that determines when recessions begin and end. The U.S. economy reached a peak in February 2020, the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Business Cycle Dating Committee (NBER) said. The recession began the following month and ended in April. The NBER said the recession ended that month because that is when the economy reached its lowest point in terms of jobs and output. The end of the recession does not mean the economy was fully recovered. It only began to rebound in May 2020, the committee said. The recovery has continued in fits and starts for the past year and by some measures is nearly complete. The economy’s output of goods and services likely reached its pre-pandemic level in the April-June quarter, analysts estimate.
