What America's best economic forecaster is saying.

All three are now flashing green. According to Achuthan, the long-leading index growth rate has been recovering since November 2008, the weekly leading index has been recovering since last December, and the short-leading index growth rate bottomed in February 2009. In sequence, each turned up, "and by April the three Ps had all been satisfied." Sure, corporate profits continue to disappoint, and the unemployment rate is climbing. But for ECRI, which navigates by relying exclusively on its instruments, that's only a part of their picture. They're the Spocks of the economic forecasting crowd—unemotional, uninvested in anything but the logic of what history and their dashboard tell them. "From our vantage point, every week and every month our call is getting stronger, not weaker, including over the last few weeks," says Achuthan. "The recession is ending somewhere this summer." In fact, it may already be over.

There's plenty of ground for skepticism, in part because the news flow is still quite negative, especially when it comes to corporate profits. ECRI's response? "Indicators are typically judged by their freshness, not their prescience. Since most market-moving numbers are coincident to short leaning, while corporate guidance is often lagging, it is no surprise that analysts do not discern any convincing evidence of an economic upturn."

Still, Achuthan warns that one of the most important indicators—employment—isn't showing recovery yet. The reason: The combination of deleveraging and the long-term decline of manufacturing is hindering job creation and destroying existing jobs. After the last recession ended in 2001, the service sector created jobs, but payroll employment continued to fall through 2003 because millions of jobs were lost in the manufacturing sector during the expansion. "We may see some echo of that in this recovery." But while employment is vital, payroll jobs growth alone doesn't make the difference between recession and expansion. "We've always felt that employment is very important, but it's a roughly coincident indicator," said Achuthan. "We would not expect the employment indicators to be mirroring anything we're seeing in the leading indicators." ECRI notes that job losses and unemployment claims are off their worst levels. "If we're right and the recession is over, the job market should improve by year's end."

Of course, improvement doesn't mean the sort of 1990s-vintage broad-based employment growth that boosts wages and expands benefits coverage. And without the tailwind of cheap money and a housing boom, it's difficult to see—as it always is at the beginning of expansions—what is going to produce large-scale jobs growth.

The recession is over! Let the jobless recovery begin!