How Long a Recession?: Different Durations for Different People
President Ford told the country at his news conference May 6, ÛÏI think we are at the end of the recession. I believe... we can look forward to some improvement economically in the third and fourth quarters of 1975, and . . . in 1976."</br></br>That same day, just a block from the White House, Û¢the, AFL-CKTs executive council, expressed an opposite view. Û÷Û÷The bottom has not yet been reached," the council said in a resolution. ÛÏThere is no upturn in sight.Û already the worst since the Depression of the 1930s, The unemployment rate last month was 8.9 per cent: there were 8.2 million people officially classified as unemployedÛÓone ' willing worker out of every 11ÛÓand that did not count the 1.1 million who had simply given up looking, nor the additional 3.9 million who were working only part-time because they could not . find full-time jobs.</br></br>The economists will tell us the recession is over in that calendar quarter, whenever it comes, when total economic output stops its decline of the last year and a half and starts to rise ] again,.They will regard that quarter as the turning point.</br></br>For the general population, however, the recession will not end that neatly, all in three months. Recessions last a great deal longer for some people than for others.</br></br>have been affected only indirectly. Bad as it has been, it has existed for them mainly in the headlines or on the nightly news. They have not lost their jobs. Far from being losers, in fact, it could be argued they have come out winners: inflation is down, and a tax cut has come on top of that.