Update Recession Comparisons

On my January 18 post, I made some comparisons of our current recessions, since there was a lot of talk that this was the worst recession since the Great Depression. Some figures have changed, so I decided to update the post.

At that time, the latest GDP figures we had from the 3rd Quarter stood at a 0.5% loss. Since then, we have the revised 4th Quarter GDP numbers at an annualized 6.2% loss - still 4.6 percentage points less than the 1957-58 peak quater loss of 10.8%, but near the 6.4% peak quater loss in the 1981-1982 recession.

At that time, the latest national unemployment rate was at 7.2% for December. Since then, the national unemployment in January went up to 7.6% - still 3.2 percentage points less than the unemployment peak of 10.8% during the 1981-1982 recession.

At this point, I can't agree it is the worst recession since the Great Depression, but I will keep track of the numbers.