Although a group of economists announced last week that the recession ended in June 2009, many local businesses are still experiencing its effects.
The report came from the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonpartisan research organization based in Cambridge, Mass. According to its website, NBER maintains a chronology of the country’s business cycle, composed of alternating dates of “peaks and troughs” in economic activity. A recession is the period between a peak and a trough.
“The key thing to note here is the end of a recession doesn’t mean that we aren’t in a hole, it just means that the hole has stopped getting deeper,” Penn Economics professor Harold Cole wrote in an e-mail.
He added that the hard economic times may continue until the “economy has recovered back to trend, and that could take a while.”
NBER says this recession began in December 2007 and lasted 18 months — the longest since the Great Depression.
While the recession is over, retailers around Penn’s campus have not seen much of an improvement in business in the last year.
Alex Yuen, owner of Beijing Restaurant at 3714 Spruce St., said business has been slow for the last three years. Even though the recession was over in 2009, he said his business has slowed even more since last year, adding that he did not expect the situation to change with this announcement.
“It seems like it’s getting worse,” he said of the restaurant’s sales.
Allegro Pizza, at 40th and Spruce streets, has also experienced the effects of the slow economy. Manager Louie Kosmatos said the recession has changed the way the restaurant makes its profits and portions its food.
Nevertheless, he speculated that the announcement of the recession’s end “may boost people’s confidence” and encourage them to eat at restaurants more frequently.
Chris Weybright, manager of Capogiro at 3925 Walnut St., said his particular franchise depends on the business of students. He added that other franchises of the gelato store in Philadelphia have fared well despite the economy.
“I think ice cream and alcohol are recession-proof,” he said, noting the relative inexpensiveness of both products.
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