Let's compare:
Currently, from the NBER website: a recession involves a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months.
From a 2009 St. Louis Fed report, referring to the NBER definition: significant decline in economic activity spreading across the economy, lasting more than a few months
You can think the definition is silly or wrong or something else, but you can't think it was recently changed. The amount of misunderstanding on this point in this sub is baffling to me.
Source for #1: https://www.nber.org/research/business-cycle-dating
Source for #2: https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/pageone-economics/uploads/newsletter/2009/200902.pdf
And no, it isn't the case that every economics textbook says otherwise. From Mankiw's Principles of Economics, 8th edition, page 485:
The upward climb of real GDP is occasionally interrupted by periods during which GDP declines, called recessions. Figure 2 marks recessions with shaded vertical bars. (*There is no ironclad rule for when the official business cycle dating committee will declare that a recession has occurred, but an old rule of thumb*** is two consecutive quarters of falling real GDP.)*
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