According to NBER, the recession ended in June 2009.

http://www.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html

That's roughly the point where GDP growth became positive again.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?chart_type=line&...

[edit: can't respond to your post, but June 2009 is also the time period when industrial production and retail sales started growing, and when the stock market recovered.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/INDPRO.txt http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/RSAFS?cid=6 http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/SP500?cid=32255 http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ALTSALES?cid=98 http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/DGORDER?cid=98

The period Jan 2009-Dec 2009 was bad, but Jun 2009-present was a period of growth for most sectors. ]

Funny - according to the very report I just quoted that positive GDP growth in 2009 is due only to growth in the financial industry which makes up for the declines other sectors are still seeing.