The Clinton Recession is a term used to associate the Early 2000s recession in the United States to the end of the presidential term of Bill Clinton, instead of the beginning of the term of George W. Bush. Supporters of Clinton are apt to call the same downturn the "Bush Recession."
The recession was dated from March 2001 to November 2001 by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the nonpartisan body that has determined the date of recessions for 75 years. President Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, led by N. Gregory Mankiw, issued a report on February 9 2004 which moved the date of the start of the recession from March 2001 to the fourth quarter of 2000.
The move gained considerable criticism; because the decision was made in the lead-up to the 2004 election, it was seen as politically motivated. Robert Hall, an economist at Stanford University and the Hoover Institution who has chaired the NBER since 1978, said "For the first time, the federal government is intervening in the process."
However, conservative reporters stand by the association of the recession with Clinton, citing changes in the unemployment rate, federal funds rate, and gross domestic product which had begun to fall in late 2000. They attribute the 62% poll figure to the observations of Americans, denying that it was a consequence of political rhetoric.[
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