The US economy is in a recession, a panel of economists that is considered the official arbiter of the nation's business cycles said today.
The NEBR committee is satisfied that the total contraction in the economy is sufficient to merit the determination that a recession is underway, the committee said in a statement, adding that the United States may have escaped a recession were it not for the September 11th attacks.
The attacks clearly deepened the contraction and may have been an important factor in turning the episode into a recession, the panel wrote.
The NBER looks at four major economic indicators to gauge the economy's health. Indicators of industrial production, employment and wholesale-retail trade were well within recession territory, the economists said.
Real income, meanwhile, has not declined although the rate of growth in income has fallen. However, the NBER noted real income had not fallen substantially in five of the last nine US recessions, and called employment the most reliable indicator of recessions.
Meanwhile, the White House has renewed its appeal for the Senate to pass an economic stimulus plan in the face of a report that the US economy had entered a recession.
White House spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer described President Bush as having been worried about the strength of the economy for a long period of time.
Speaking shortly before the National Bureau of Economic Research reported that the economy entered a recession last March, Mr Fleischer told reporters: "If today's report indicates that from an economic or statistical point of view that we're in recession, it's even more important for the Senate to take action on passing a stimulus package that can be signed into law."