The U.S. entered an "unprecedented" recession in February as job growth and production began grinding to a halt because of the coronavirus pandemic, a trade group said Monday, ending the country's longest economic boom on record.
The National Bureau of Economic Research, which is responsible for determining when recessions begin and end, said that the economic expansion that started in June 2009 hit a peak in February before dropping sharply, marking the start of the recession.
"The unprecedented magnitude of the decline in employment and production, and its broad reach across the entire economy, warrants the designation of this episode as a recession," the NBER panel said in a statement.
