Economists may not call it recession, but job stats say it is

By Tony Pugh | McClatchy Newspapers

The combination of falling home equity, the rising cost of food, health care and housing, tighter credit and eight straight months of job losses — 84,000 in August alone — has put the squeeze on middle-class families struggling to stay afloat in a slumping economy. And every time payrolls have declined this consistently since 1948 the economy has been officially in recession. Even college graduates are feeling the pinch. Their 2.7 percent unemployment rate is the highest since 2004, while the 9.6 percent unemployment rate for workers without a high-school diploma is the highest since 1996.