WASHINGTON – It’s starting to feel like another recession.

Businesses are ordering fewer goods. Home sales are the slowest in decades. Jobs are scarce, and unemployment claims are rising. Perhaps most worrisome, manufacturing activity, which had been one of the economy’s few bright spots, is faltering.

“The odds of a double-dip are rising and uncomfortably high,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, referring to the possibility that the nation will tip back into recession. “Nothing else can go wrong. There is no cushion left.”

On Wednesday, the government offered the latest dose of grim news about the economic recovery: Companies cut back last month on their investments in equipment and machines. And Americans bought new homes at the weakest pace in nearly half a century.

Earlier this week came news that sales of previously occupied homes fell last month to the lowest level in 15 years.

Unemployment remains near double digits because job growth in the private sector has slowed.

The economy has grown for a full year now, and many experts believe the recession technically ended in July 2009. But the pace of expansion has slowed significantly in the past six months.

Economists are predicting the government will announce Friday that the economy grew from April to June even more slowly than previously thought, at an annual rate below 2 percent — weak for normal times and especially anemic right after a recession.

Of course, for most Americans, the numbers are strictly academic.

For Tim Reardon, a sales executive at a small Massachusetts company that installs kitchen counters and floors, August is shaping up to be the worst month of business in 11 years. His company cut a third of its staff and is placing factory orders a job at a time.

“You definitely watch the pennies a little closer — everything from advertising to tools,” he said. “This is feeling like another recession.”

For the average household, whether the economy is growing slightly or not at all may not matter much. Two gauges that matter more are the unemployment rate, which is stuck at 9.5 percent, and home values, which are down about 30 percent from their 2006 peak.

“Who cares if it’s a second recession or a double-dip?” said William Dunkelberg, an economics professor at Temple University’s School of Business and Management and chief economist of the National Federation of Independent Business. “Either way, things are not going well.”

Overall orders for big-ticket manufactured goods did rise for July, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. But that was only because demand for commercial aircraft surged by 76 percent.

Taking out the volatile transportation category, orders for durable goods fell at the steepest rate since January. And business investment took its sharpest drop since the economic dark days of early 2009.

The decline is particularly troubling because manufacturers had been helping to lead the economy on its comeback, filling orders for businesses that were rebuilding their stockrooms.

 

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