The Recession is a Myth

… is the title of a recent article from John Lott Jr. I have been hearing both doomsday stories and reports of media exaggeration concerning the economy for some time now. The doomsday stories almost had me convinced to suspend my normal suspicion of the media on the economy.

And then I read Lott’s column.

Here’s a list of outstanding quotes. The first establishes that, no, seriously, the recession is a myth. And the rest give some indication why we might be confused about that.

Yet, as any economist knows, a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth, and we haven’t even had one single quarter of negative growth reported.

Over 78 percent more negative news stories discussed a recession when the economy under a Republican was soaring than occurred under a Democrat when the economy was shrinking.

During the 2000 election, with Bill Clinton as president, the economy was viewed through rose-colored glasses. According to polls, voters didn’t realize that the country was in a recession. Although the economy started shrinking in July 2000, most Americans through the entire year thought that the economy was fine.

Indeed, research has indicated that media bias is real. Kevin Hassett and I looked at 12,620 newspaper and wire service headlines from 1985 through 2004 … Even after accounting for how well the economy was doing (e.g., what the unemployment rate was and whether it was going up or down), there was still a big difference in how positive or negative the headlines were. Democratic presidents got about 15 percent more positive headlines than Republicans for the same economic news.