When the economy goes south: Recessions, explained

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Is the economy underwater?

© cphoto, LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS/stock.adobe.com; Photo illustration Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

There’s a joke in economic circles that a recession is when your neighbor loses their job, and a depression is when you lose yours.

But if you go by the National Bureau of Economic Research (“NBER,” whose Business Cycle Dating Committee is the official “recession referee”), a recession is a “significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months.” A particularly severe and long-lasting recession is sometimes called a depression, although there’s no official threshold separating the two.

It’s a popular but incorrect notion that two quarters of declining gross domestic product (GDP) is all you need to define a recession. The truth is more complicated. For instance, GDP declined in the first two quarters of 2022, but a recession wasn’t declared.

In practice, a recession is a broad decline in economic activity that shows up across measures such as production, employment, income, and consumer spending. These income and spending declines could lead to further declines in production and employment in a vicious cycle that morphs into a depression.

Still, that’s kind of a clinical way to think about it, and doesn’t fully embrace the profound unhappiness a recession can cause for investors, companies, and anyone who needs to put food on the table.

In the most severe recessions—or depressions—unemployment spikes to double-digit levels, stocks fall 40% or more, real estate prices crash, major companies declare bankruptcy, and governments go deeply into debt helping struggling companies and households. The 2007–08 recession even saw the bankruptcy of General Motors (GM), a company whose influence once was so vast that it inspired the saying, “What’s good for GM is good for the country.” (See figure 1.)

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Figure 1: NOTICE A PATTERN? The correlation between unemployment and economic recession is unmistakable. Which makes sense—when economic activity pulls back, there’s less need for workers. But note that some recessions are worse than others.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Unemployment Rate [UNRATE], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE, August 25, 2026.

The impact of a severe recession can take years to overcome. As we learned from the Great Depression, entire generations of people with the bad luck to enter the workforce during such times may never make up the lost income opportunities. Those who retire into the teeth of a recession often find a huge chunk of their savings is gone, forcing them to either live on less than they’d expected or to reenter the workforce.

It’s an ugly picture, and unfortunately, recessions are simply built into the economic cycle. Governments and central banks often use fiscal and/or monetary policy to engineer their way out of recessions, or at least to keep them from growing in severity. But it’s a complicated matter. In the early 2020s, for example, inflation began to run so high that the Federal Reserve started an aggressive rate-hike cycle that risked pushing the economy toward recession. As bad as a recession might be, the thinking went, inflation was an even worse enemy. For the Fed, it was basically a case of “pick your poison.”

Speaking of economics jokes, here’s another: Economists have predicted 12 of the last five recessions.

Yes, they’re a pessimistic bunch, and they don’t always get it right. Plus, the GDP data used to describe recessions is backward-looking, which means that by the time a recession is declared, it may already be over. That being said, there are some clues that might help you get a sense of when economic misery may be on the horizon:

1. Job cuts. Although companies lay off workers even during boom times, the layoffs come much more often when corporate leaders start to feel squeezed. Maybe higher wholesale costs are starting to hurt their profit margins, or maybe demand has fallen for a key product. When large companies regularly announce layoffs of thousands of employees, you should take notice.

You can also monitor employment trends by following the monthly jobs report and other stats put out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Or consider following nongovernment research, such as the Challenger Report (which tracks job cuts) and the ADP National Employment Report (collected by payroll processing giant ADP).

2. Earnings weakness. Wall Street analysts and companies project earnings per share by quarter and over the course of the coming year. These estimates rise and fall based partly on economic winds, so when you see them fall steadily, it’s often a sign that all may not be well.

Research firm FactSet issues weekly reports forecasting quarterly earnings, so you can check there for trends. It also tracks company forecasts, noting how many companies have issued better or worse quarterly guidance. An “earnings recession” can often precede a real-world recession, and sometimes serves as a canary in the coal mine.

3. Weak Federal Reserve data. Keep a close eye on the Fed’s regular reports on regional trends, which can sometimes point to softness in the economy.

4. Declining manufacturing trends. When people start feeling the pinch of a worsening economy, they often pull back on spending. One of the first data points that picks this up is monthly manufacturing data from the Institute of Supply Management (ISM), as well as regular purchasing managers index reports such as the Chicago Business Barometer (aka Chicago PMI).

Any long-term investor will likely face several economic recessions over decades of investing. They’re unavoidable and outside your control. The way you respond, however, is in your control, especially when it comes to the emotional side of investing.

Often one of the first signs of a recession is a fall in stock prices. It happened in the fall of 2008, when several days of heavy selling set off what ultimately became a nearly 40% drop in the major stock indexes.

The COVID-19 recession of 2020 also saw a quick and steep downturn on Wall Street. The major stock indexes had several days where they dropped 5% or more. Fear gripped the market, and volatility soared.

It’s easy to get caught up in anxiety at moments like these, and there are definitely times when taking some money off the table makes sense. However, if you’re in the market for the long term, remind yourself that these drastic dives happened decade after decade over the last 100 years, but the overall direction of stocks remained higher throughout.

Typically, people who completely exited stocks during a recession came to regret it. The 2008 and 2020 recession sell-offs were followed by long rallies that quickly brought major indexes back above pre-recession levels.

That may not always be the case, because past performance doesn’t guarantee anything about the future, as the boilerplate investment disclaimer reminds us. Also, the recovery time can vary. The 2008 and 2020 comebacks were helped a great deal by the Federal Reserve’s zero interest rate policy paired with stimulus checks, tax credits, unemployment benefit extensions, and other government aid.

In contrast, it took the market decades to recover from the 1929 crash. Although decades-long recessions aren’t likely today, rebounds might not occur as quickly as they did in 2008 or 2020 if the Fed doesn’t respond by quickly cutting rates. A situation like the 1970s, when recession accompanied inflation (known as “stagflation”), can make the Fed’s job extremely difficult and even cause a quick slide back into recession, as we saw then.

If you believe in the power of capitalism, human ingenuity, and the ability of central banks to smooth out economic extremes, it’s hard to justify throwing up your hands and giving in when recession takes the market lower. Instead, consider your asset allocations and which sectors you have exposure to. Certain sectors tend to perform better than others during recessions, and bonds and other fixed-income securities can sometimes be a line of defense.

Also, when markets are in panic mode, growth highfliers and even quality cash cows can sometimes become bargains worthy of a spot in your portfolio. Keep a wish list of stocks you’d like to add—if the price is right—and wait for your opportunity.

If you like the idea of accumulating during periods of stress via dollar cost averaging, you might appreciate the words of legendary investor Warren Buffett: “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.”