Most Americans sorely knew it already, but now there's no doubt. The country officially is in a recession, and has been since December 2007. Wall Street convulsed, and economists in Utah worry that the news bodes ill for the state.

With the economic pain in the U.S. and Utah likely to stretch well into 2009, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday he stands ready to lower interest rates yet again and to explore other rescue or revival measures.

Rushing in reinforcements, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pledged to take all the steps he can in the waning days of the Bush administration to provide relief. Specifically, Paulson is looking at more ways to tap into a $700 billion financial bailout pool.

On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., vowed to have a massive economic stimulus package ready on Inauguration Day for President-elect Barack Obama's signature.

That measure -- which could total a whopping $500 billion -- would bankroll big public works projects to generate jobs, provide aid to states to help with Medicaid costs and provide money toward renewable energy development.

Crafting such a colossal recovery package would mark a Herculean feat. Congress convenes Jan. 6, giving lawmakers just two weeks to complete their work if it is to be signed Jan. 20.

None of the pledges for more action could comfort Wall Street investors or assuage the fears of those who track Utah's economic well-being. The Dow Jones industrials plunged 679.95 points, or 7.70 percent, to close at 8,149.09. There have only been three days in market history with bigger point losses for the Dow -- the Monday after the Sept. 11 attacks, and Sept. 29 and Oct. 15 of this year.

Not only did stocks end their five-day winning streak, they erased more than half the gains. The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index, one of the broadest market gauges, lost nearly 9 percent.

All of which paints a challenging picture for the nation and the state.

James Wood, director of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Utah, said that, unlike the country as a whole, there is no sure-fire measure to indicate when a state is in a recession. That said, he thinks Utah already is in a "recessionary environment," despite Utah's comparatively solid economic base.

"Job growth, or the lack of it, is one of the most important measures on a state level," he said, noting the latest numbers have gone negative. "We're also seeing wage growth slowing."

Jeff Thredgold, economist at Zions Bank, said "2009 is likely to be worse. We could be talking about a Utah recession in 2009, not particularly severe and not particularly long."

Mark Knold, senior economist for the Utah Department of Workforce Services, goes a step further, saying there is no doubt Utah is in a recession "because our jobs numbers have gone below zero."

Although Utah has an unemployment rate half that of the nation, at 3.5 percent, he anticipates the rate will increase as the state moves into 2009. "We haven't found the bottom yet of that one."

The evidence of a downturn nationally has been widespread for months -- slower production, stagnant wages and hundreds of thousands of lost jobs. But the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research, charged with making the call for the history books, waited until now to weigh in.

In a statement released Monday, the members of the group's Business Cycle Dating Committee -- made up of seven prominent economists, most from the academic sector -- said that the economy entered a recession in December 2007.

The committee noted that the contraction in the labor market began in the first month of 2008 and said that the declines in most major indicators, such as personal income, manufacturing activity, retail sales, and industrial production, "met the standard for a recession."

President George W. Bush, in an interview with ABC's "World News," expressed remorse about lost jobs, cracked nest eggs and other damage wrought by the financial crisis. "I'm sorry it's happening, of course," said Bush. The president said he'd back more government intervention.

With NBER's decision, the United States has fallen into two recessions during Bush's eight years in office. The first one started in March 2001 and ended in November of that year.

Monday was a white-knuckle day, punctuated by grim economic reports. An index of manufacturing activity sank to a reading of 36.2 in November, a 26-year low, and construction spending fell by a larger than expected 1.2 percent in October.

Unlike past recessions, consumers are bearing the brunt of this one. Clobbered by job losses, hard-to-get credit and hits to their wealth from sinking home values and plunging portfolio investments, consumers have cut back sharply on their spending, throwing the economy into reverse.