The money the gov’t spent is going into banks balance sheets so they somewhat stabalize. They are not lending money (ie that money is not circulating into the economy). Velocity of money is dropping drastically. Nothing is being spent that will help GDP.
Actually, now that I look at the data again, I see that I misstated. The NBER says that the economic peak began in Dec. 2007, and that the economic decline that has happened since then qualifies as a recession. But the BEA says that GDP has actually increased at a 3.2% since then:
So yes, we are in a recession, but the GDP is still increasing at a pretty healthy rate, at least as of the end of the third quarter.