CAMBRIDGE September 20, 2010—The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of
Economic Research met yesterday by conference call. At its meeting, the committee determined that a
trough in business activity occurred in the U.S. economy in June 2009. The trough marks the end of the
recession that began in December 2007 and the beginning of an expansion. The recession lasted 18
months, which makes it the longest of any recession since World War II. Previously the longest postwar
recessions were those of 1973-75 and 1981-82, both of which lasted 16 months.

In determining that a trough occurred in June 2009, the committee did not conclude that economic
conditions since that month have been favorable or that the economy has returned to operating at normal
capacity. Rather, the committee determined only that the recession ended and a recovery began in that
month. A recession is a period of falling economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than
a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and
wholesale-retail sales. The trough marks the end of the declining phase and the start of the rising phase
of the business cycle. Economic activity is typically below normal in the early stages of an expansion,
and it sometimes remains so well into the expansion.

The committee decided that any future downturn of the economy would be a new recession and not a
continuation of the recession that began in December 2007. The basis for this decision was the length
and strength of the recovery to date.

The committee waited to make its decision until revisions in the National Income and Product Accounts,
released on July 30 and August 27, 2010, clarified the 2009 time path of the two broadest measures of
economic activity, real Gross Domestic Product (real GDP) and real Gross Domestic Income (real GDI).
The committee noted that in the most recent data, for the second quarter of 2010, the average of real
GDP and real GDI was 3.1 percent above its low in the second quarter of 2009 but remained 1.3 percent
below the previous peak which was reached in the fourth quarter of 2007.