If we weren't sure whether we were in a recession, all doubt has been eliminated. I was a bit surprised to learn that the U.S. has been in recession since December 2007-apparently the first recession in which GDP increased during its first two quarters. But I guess that doesn't really matter. Here in the heartland, manufacturing in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin fell in November to its lowest level in almost 12 years, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Compared with a year earlier, factory output from those five states was down 10.8 percent, worse than the 7.3 percent drop in national factory output during the same period.
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