The Guardian claims in this article that "A recession is generally defined by a decrease in economic activity, typically measured as gross domestic product (GDP

The Guardian claims in this article that "A recession is generally defined by a decrease in economic activity, typically measured as gross domestic product (GDP), over two successive quarters, although in the US the National Bureau of Economic Research (NEBR) has the final say". If you are going to let the NEBR have the final say, then you can never know whether you are currently in a recession because the NEBR does not those calls until revised data comes in, which takes a long time. So the Guardian, by its definition of recession, can not know whether Americans are right or wrong about whether the US is in recession (I don't share their definition, there is no official definition of a recession in the US, although the NBER is a highly respected private organization). In past recessions, most mainstream economists have denied that there was a recession when one was in fact beginning.