New Unemployment Claims Data Are Not a Sign of a Recession

The business media have become obsessed with the notion of a double dip recession in a context where the economic data we are now seeing is not very different from the data that we have been seeing for months. These data point to a picture of an economy that is growing weakly, however it is still growing. However reporters who are now obsessed with the "double dip" are reading numbers consistent with weak growth as implying a recession. 

For example, a Washington Post article that raised the ...