Readers Don't Think the Recession Is Over

Ben Bernanke declared Tuesday that the recession is "very likely over at this point." He called the recovery technical, though, and said that it won't feel like a real recovery. Instead, Bernanke talked about the risk that the economy will grow too slowly in the second half of 2009 to create many new jobs or replace the ones that were lost. In which case, "unemployment will be slow to come down," Bernanke said. "It will come down, but it will take some time."

I asked Slate and DoubleX readers a month ago how they would know when the recession is over. Based on your responses, many of you aren't ready to celebrate Bernanke's vote of confidence in the economy. You have your own markers for the end of the downturn. They involve a turn for the better in your own fortunes. Much of the time, that means finding new or better work. So if you're toasting Bernanke, it's probably in the sardonic spirit of Slate columnist Daniel Gross: "The recession is over! Let the jobless recovery begin!"

Here's what the still-battered troops have to say. One reader, a Ph.D. student in the sciences in Pittsburgh, explains that the recession will be over for her "when I no longer worry about how I will pay my bills for the next year." She is a graduate student who suddenly found herself with only two-thirds of her previous annual stipend and unexpected extra taxes to pay because the source of the funding changed. That leaves her with an anticipated income of only $14,000 this year. She is teaching music to supplement that, but it's hard to balance that with the 70 to 100 hours a week she must spend in the lab.

This student has already given up almost everything she can think of (except the Internet) and taken in a roommate, and "I am still very concerned about how I will pay my heating bills this winter." She adds, "I can't go without food or electricity." No, I would say not. She has looked into food stamps and heat subsidies. But as a scientist, she earns an income that's just above the federal poverty level, so she doesn't qualify. She thought Bernanke's announcement might help by making Americans feel more secure. But she added, "Unfortunately, the people in the trenches do not feel any of the recovery. I think much of America, and definitely the people that I know personally, don't feel like any of the financial 'help' has hit the people who really need it, who could really use it."

I also heard from readers who are working but consider themselves recession-exploited, as their employers continue to wring more work out of them as they lay other people off. A library assistant at a D.C. white-shoe law firm recounts that in the past year, two co-workers have left her department. Their responsibilities are now hers. The firm gave no merit or cost-of-living raises last year, even though, she says, the partners cleared more than $1 million in profits. At the same time, this reader has been dealing with the financial implications of the end of a long-term relationship: "No more splitting the rent and bills, no more security of living with somebody with a bigger paycheck and savings account."

And so for her, the recession will end when her firm starts hiring support staff again and giving raises. "I think that the firm's management thinks that ice cream socials and casual Fridays will be enough to assuage its support staff, but it's frustrating and demeaning," she says. Of Bernanke's declaration, she said, " 'Very likely over' isn't exactly confidence-boosting, especially when delivered with the caveats that unemployment will remain high and weak economic activity will continue. For me, and I imagine for a lot of people, the recession's end in a very abstract sense will not mean anything until concrete changes in daily life are evident." And, she wonders, "what would have to happen for things to go back to bad and get worse?"