Did the Washington DC metro area have a recession?

A question from the blog comments:

Question, does anyone know if we officially went into a recession in this area "2 negative quarters of GRP"?? My suspicion is no, in which case, its inaccurate to say we are "emerging" from the recession when we never entered one in the first place.

First of all, NBER, the official arbiter of recessions, only makes its judgments for the country as a whole. Therefore, if "we" are in the United States of America then "we" are/were in a recession.

Second, the belief that a recession is defined as two quarters of negative economic growth is pure myth, not fact.

Third, in the question, "this area" could be defined in multiple ways. In the blog comments, people who live in DC-proper have long complained that the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area includes a small part of West Virginia. To them, any part of West Virginia is irrelevant. Meanwhile, someone who lives and works in Fairfax County, Virginia might care far more about the Fairfax County unemployment rate than the DC unemployment rate.

Anyway, here are unemployment rate graphs for differing definitions of "this area", depending on where you live.

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area unemployment rate:
District of Columbia unemployment rate:
State of Maryland unemployment rate:
Commonwealth of Virginia unemployment rate:
So, were "we" in the DC area in a recession? Yep, any way you look at it.