Ravitz based his assertion on a statistic his family has kept for decades: the ratio of items sold that were advertised in the stores' weekly circular to the sales of regularly priced items. When times are tough, more people shop the sales. "People [now] are more price conscious," he said.
But economists and others keeping close tabs on the recovery said there was no hard evidence that the U.S. economy, which suffered its worst downturn since the 1930s, had gone into reverse or was likely to do so anytime soon - though the prevailing mood is undeniably sober.
The economy was hit by a massive heart attack in 2007 and 2008 and is now a patient in recovery, said Rex Macey, chief investment officer at Wilmington Trust Corp. "Like any patient," he said, "sometimes they show more improvement, sometimes less."
That tendency dampens confidence. But a weak, slow, and inconsistent rebound has been the prediction of economists all along.
Looming significantly and adding to the unease is the absence of an official declaration by the National Bureau of Economic Research that the recession that began in December 2007 has ended, though many economists say it ended a year ago.
What's more, a long list of ugly economic conditions gives the impression that the economy is stalled and ready to sink once more. They include persistently high unemployment, restrained consumer spending, weak state and municipal finances, a huge federal budget deficit, credit woes in Europe, and the slowdown or end of federal aid to certain segments of the economy.
While the performance of the stock market is not necessarily reflective of the state of the economy, the steady and steep drops in the Dow, S&P 500, and the Nasdaq add to the concern.
