A recent IBD/TIPP Poll, for instance, found that fully 62% believe the U.S. is in recession, including a tri-partisan majority of Democrats (51%), Republicans (74%), and independents (56%). That compares to an overall 18% who say the economy isn’t in a recession, and 20% who say they’re “not sure.” Other polls concur.

To further understand what Americans believe about recessions, the August I&I/TIPP Poll asked 1,335 Americans from across the country to respond to the following definitional question: “Do you agree or disagree with the definition of a recession as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth?”

This poll was taken from Aug. 2-4 and has a margin of error of +/-2.8 percentage points.

Among those queried, 56% agreed the definition of a recession is two straight quarters of GDP decline, versus just 13% who said it isn’t, and 30% who said they were “unsure.”