The Great Recession officially began in Decemberugg cardy boots 2007 and ended in June 2009, making the 18-month-long recession the longest since the end of World War II, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Cambridge nonprofit that declares the start and end of such downturns. Tweet 2 people Tweeted thisSubmit to DiggdiggsdiggYahoo! Buzz ShareThis James Poterba, president of the bureau and a Massachusetts Institute of ugg cardy classic knit shoes Technology economics professor, said that despite the economy's recent expansion, there has been little relief for those struggling with unemployment. "Of the last three recoveries, this one is having slower ugg short shoes employment growth after the downturn,'' Poterba said referring to recessions in 1991 and 2001. "That is in contrast to earlier recessions when employment tended to come back more quickly.'' Poterba said it is unclear why this recession is different and said that is the subject of current research.Previously, the longest postwar recessions were two, 16-month stretches from 1973 to 1975, and 1981 to 1982. The bureau, an eight-member committee, has calculated the beginning and end of recessions since the 1920s, using information ugg short shoes on sale including gross domestic product and income, two of the broadest measures of economic activity. The group's assessment can often take classic ugg short shoes many months as it reviews key data released by the government quarterly to identify a clear trend. In April, the bureau said it needed more data before it could say when the worst downturn in nearly 70 years ended. The nonpartisan organization typically moves cautiously - sometimes taking years to make a determination - because of its goal to assess the economy for the historical record.The group became the official authority on recession timing in the early 1960s, when the US Commerce ugg tall boots Department adopted its business cycle dates. Members of the committee who evaluated the current recession include Martin Feldstein, James Stock, and Jeffrey Frankel, all of Harvard University. The committee said the most recent dataugg classic tall boots showed that in the second quarter of 2010, both gross domestic product and income averages were 3.1 percent above the second quarter of 2009, but 1.3 percent below the previous peak in the fourth quarter of 2007.It has been a long slog for the Massachusetts economy, too. Economists at Moody's Analytics said the Bay State pulled out of its recession at the same time as the nation as a whole, revising a prior analysis that put the state's recovery ahead of other states'.Gus Faucher, a economist at Moody's Analytics, whose forecasts have been used by the state, redicted that unemployment in Massachusetts will rise to 9.5 percent by the middle of next year. The unemployment rate slipped to 8.8 percent in August, the first time it fell below 9 percent in a year.Nationally, he said, the unemployment rate may climb from 9.6 percent to 10 percent. The increases may be caused by an influx of people whougg tall boots for sale stopped looking for jobs but would return to their search as tSA