Today in what turns out to be not a very exciting announcement, National Bureau of Economic Research declared an end to the recession–and it’s been over for a while. According to their “business cycle dating committee,” it ended in 2009, 18 months after its December 2007 start–the longest recession in the United States since the Great Depression.Telling the nigh 15 million jobless Americans that the recession has been over for more than a year may seem like a low blow, but the committee clarifies that they “did not conclude that economic conditions since that month have been favorable or that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity.”In other words: the recession’s officially been over for a while, but it’s normal that everything still sucks; a recession’s “end” just means that it’s not getting any worse. At least there’s that.