It's your math bub. In the real world you can't have a positive until the negative is eliminated. I did notice similarities but more importantly I can grasp the differences which mandate the need for two terms to describe two seperate scenarios. Someday maybe you will.
No, you are definitely math challenged. The negative from a recession is the change, or derivative. Consecutive quarters with negative growth. The American economy is not at negative GDP or jobs, it lost some sure, measured as a % change. You can't have a total workforce of -100,000, that is a nonsense figure, you can have a loss of 100,000 jobs, sure. Or a gain of 100,000 jobs...now it's gaining, that's a positive derivative. That is growth, and it is also recovery.
In the real world, economists track changes in this way. While an economy is recovering it is adding jobs, it is adding GDP, it is growing again. Economists track the economic activity in a nation by looking at the trajectory of the economy. It's growing when the economy is adding new jobs, and adding to GDP. Whether or not it is a recovery or not, an economy can still be measured in terms of growth or contraction.
That's it for me, I'm bored with this thread jack now.