US NBER recession indicator, monthly
Monthly US business-cycle reference panel, 1854-12 onward: the NBER-based recession indicator (FRED USREC), a 0/1 dummy marking the period from the month following each NBER business-cycle peak through the trough month. Carries recession_start and recession_end flags, a per-episode episode_id, months_into_recession and months_since_last_recession for regime-duration features. Upstream: National Bureau of Economic Research business-cycle reference dates, redistributed keyless via FRED fredgraph.csv (restores the reference series purged from the API-key FRED connector on 2026-09-29). Method caveats: the NBER declares peaks and troughs with a long lag, so recent months can be revised from 0 to 1; the opening 1854-12 episode starts in-recession with no observed start. One row per month x USA; the series is binary by construction and any non-0/1 value fails loudly. Who joins this: all three personas join on year_month + country_code to condition demand, churn and pipeline models on the official recession regime.
- Rows
- 2,061
- Columns
- 11
- Source cadence
- Monthly
- Last refreshed
- Sep 30, 2026
- Theme
- economy
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| month_start | date | First day of the calendar month. (unit: date) |
| year_month | string | Calendar month as YYYY-MM (panel join key). (unit: string) |
| country | string | Country name (shared normalization layer). (unit: string) |
| country_code | string | ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code (USA). (unit: string) |
| in_recession | integer | NBER-based recession indicator (FRED USREC): 1 from the NBER business-cycle peak through the trough, else 0. (unit: 0/1 dummy) |
| recession_start | integer | 1 on the first month of a recession episode (0 for the opening 1854-12 episode, whose start predates the panel). (unit: flag) |
| recession_end | integer | 1 on the last month of a recession episode. (unit: flag) |
| episode_id | integer | Integer id of the contiguous recession episode (null outside recessions). (unit: integer) |
| months_into_recession | integer | 1-based count of months into the current recession episode (null outside recessions). (unit: months) |
| months_since_last_recession | integer | Months since the end of the previous recession episode (null before the first observed episode end, and during recessions). (unit: months) |
| row_hash | string | Deterministic 16-hex sha256 of year_month + the panel level (idempotency key). (unit: string) |
First 10 sample rows — a preview, not the complete dataset.
| month_start | year_month | country | country_code | in_recession | recession_start | recession_end | episode_id | months_into_recession | months_since_last_recession | row_hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1854-12-01 | 1854-12 | United States | USA | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | — | e3d59910157d327b |
| 1855-01-01 | 1855-01 | United States | USA | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — | 1 | 850e72b1a34c4a6f |
| 1855-02-01 | 1855-02 | United States | USA | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — | 2 | a626c105a6dda905 |
| 1855-03-01 | 1855-03 | United States | USA | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — | 3 | 8f04f75b3ec5c425 |
| 1855-04-01 | 1855-04 | United States | USA | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — | 4 | a7ac172eea66fe61 |
| 1855-05-01 | 1855-05 | United States | USA | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — | 5 | ced0c0b294765cf1 |
| 1855-06-01 | 1855-06 | United States | USA | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — | 6 | cb613fb5dc3e0e84 |
| 1855-07-01 | 1855-07 | United States | USA | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — | 7 | baf0d4c8d1ce772a |
| 1855-08-01 | 1855-08 | United States | USA | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — | 8 | 4ab7794a4fdc27b4 |
| 1855-09-01 | 1855-09 | United States | USA | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — | 9 | bb33875545de9110 |
- Current
20260930T113009Z-92e766ac22ba · sha256 92e766ac22ba…
2,061 rows · first snapshot
Point any LLM at the metadata endpoint — the documentation above is machine-readable too (JSON-LD + Croissant).
curl "https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/fred_cycle_inflation_intel/us_nber_recession_monthly" | jq '{title, rows, columns_count, license}'import requests
ds = requests.get("https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/fred_cycle_inflation_intel/us_nber_recession_monthly").json()
print(ds["title"], ds["rows"], "rows")
# Sample rows for an LLM context window
for row in ds.get("sample_rows", [])[:5]:
print(row)API endpoint: https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/fred_cycle_inflation_intel/us_nber_recession_monthly
Tip: fetch /llms.txt for the full machine-readable catalog.
Where this data comes from and what was made from it. Other people's work shows as counts; only shared projects are named.
Cite this snapshot
Pinned to snapshot 20260930T113009Z-92e766ac22ba and its content hash, so readers get exactly the data you used.
US Business-Cycle & Core-Inflation Intelligence (FRED, keyless). (2026). US NBER recession indicator, monthly [Data set, snapshot 20260930T113009Z-92e766ac22ba, sha256 92e766ac22ba]. Datazimuts. Retrieved 2026-09-30, from https://datazimuts.com/en/datasets/fred_cycle_inflation_intel/us_nber_recession_monthly?snapshot=20260930T113009Z-92e766ac22ba
@misc{dz_fred_cycle_inflation_intel_us_nber_reces_92e766ac,
title = {{US NBER recession indicator, monthly}},
author = {{US Business-Cycle \& Core-Inflation Intelligence (FRED, keyless)}},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Datazimuts},
howpublished = {\url{https://datazimuts.com/en/datasets/fred_cycle_inflation_intel/us_nber_recession_monthly?snapshot=20260930T113009Z-92e766ac22ba}},
note = {Snapshot 20260930T113009Z-92e766ac22ba, sha256 92e766ac22bacc4a2a5d6769fbc6987ea4ff639b0a328d50f95e6045ebaa540c; accessed 2026-09-30}
}Embed a table or a chart
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<iframe src="https://datazimuts.com/embed/chart?dataset=fred_cycle_inflation_intel%2Fus_nber_recession_monthly&lang=en&theme=auto&snapshot=20260930T113009Z-92e766ac22ba&x=year_month&y=in_recession&agg=avg" title="US NBER recession indicator, monthly" width="100%" height="380" style="border:0" loading="lazy"></iframe>
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