Buffett: We're Still in a Recession Despite What Officials Say

By: Forrest Jones

The United States is still stuck in a recession even though the National Bureau of Economic Research has officially declared the economic contraction over, says investment guru and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett.

The bureau said the United States emerged from the worst recession since the Great Depression in June 2009, but for Buffett, the country is still mired in economic contraction from a common sense point of view.

The legendary stock picker says any declarations of an end to the recession is due to definitions of what a recession actually is — normally defined by a shrinking gross domestic product (GDP) — and not due to how it feels for many Americans.

“I think we're in a recession until real per capita GDP gets back to where it was. That is not the way the National Bureau of Economic Research measures it,” Buffett tells CNBC.

“The average American is below where he was before or his family, in terms of real income, GDP. We're still in a recession. And we're not gonna be out of it for awhile, but we will get out of it.”

The Obama administration admits that even though the United States is technically out of the recession, high unemployment rates mean that for many people, it still feels like the economy is tanking.

“Even though economists may say that the recession officially ended last year, obviously for the millions of people who are still out of work, people who have seen their home values decline, people who are struggling to pay the bills day to day, it's still very real for them,” says President Barack Obama, according to the Washington Post.