We've gotten used to hearing that the Great Recession was the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, and we've all had a pretty good hunch that the recovery hasn't exactly been fantastic, either.

Now, here's more proof. The Council on Foreign Relations recently compared the current economic recovery - which officially began in June 2009 - to other economic recoveries since World War II. They found that this one has been the weakest on a number of measures, including real gross domestic product, employment and housing.

Want proof? The blue line in this chart shows average housing prices in other postwar recoveries. This "recovery," which shows housing prices continuing to fall, is in red.

"This continued fall in nominal home prices is easily the worst in postwar experience," the report says.

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So this is what a recovery looks like?

The number of unmarried couples living together shot up by 13 percent between 2009 and 2010, and some of the decisions may not have been completely motivated by romance.

Maybe more folks needed someone to help pay the rent.

Rose Kreider, a researcher with the U.S. Census, crunched the numbers and found that the sharp increase in opposite-sex couples living together coincided with a big jump in unemployment among the unmarried couples.

Nearly 7.5 million couples were cohabitating in 2010, up from about 6.7 million in 2009.

The number of unmarried people living together has generally risen since the Census started tracking the data in 1996, but the gains have rarely been so great. In fact, there was a statistically insignificant 2 percent drop in cohabitating couples from 2008 to 2009. That followed a 5 percent gain from 2007 to 2008.

The recession of 2007-09 has taken its toll on unmarried couples. In 2008, 59 percent of cohabitating couples said both partners were employed, but that percentage fell to 52 percent in 2009 and 49 percent in 2010.

In addition, people who moved in together this year were more likely to include at least one jobless partner than couples who already were living together. Kreiser said just 39 percent of newly cohabitating couples were both employed, compared with 50 percent of couples that were already together.

Although the recession officially started in December 2007, Kreiser speculates that the big spike in couples moving in together began more recently because, as unemployment has dragged on, more people have exhausted savings, unemployment benefits and other ways to pay rent on their own.

"The fact that a higher proportion of the new couples are younger may also make it more difficult for them to find jobs in a tough economy where older workers with more skills are also looking for jobs," Kreider wrote in a white paper released this week.

The Census data also show an increase in same-sex cohabitating couples this year, but Kreiser says that was expected because of a change in how same-sex couples are counted.

These days, homebuyers seem to be getting more and more like regular consumers, unwilling to pay full price because they know that same house - or one just like it - could end up on the sale rack pretty soon.

Increasingly, that bet is paying off.

The percentage of homes on the market that have had their price reduced has slowly edged up over the course of the year, according to real estate brokerage ZipRealty’s analysis of prices in 26 major markets.

ZipRealty said about 47 percent of homes in those markets had at least one price reduction in August, up from about 40 percent in January.

The price drops may be helping move some homes, but they don't appear to be enough to really jump-start the weak real estate market. The National Association of Realtors said Thursday that existing home sales rose 7.6 percent in August from a month earlier, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.13 million. Still, that's a 19 percent drop from a year earlier.

The NAR said median price for an existing home was $178,600, up less than 1 percent from a year ago.

Buyers might be smart to hold out even after the price has been reduced once. According to ZipRealty’s data, sellers who drop their asking price typically reduce the price a second time.

How much should you expect your dream house to go down in price?

The median reduction was $19,092 in August, or 7 percent of the list price. That amount that has remained fairly steady this year, according to ZipRealty’s analysis.

The data was culled from MLS listings in major markets such as Boston, Dallas, Las Vegas, Seattle and Los Angeles. ZipRealty only included the 26 major markets in which it operates, representing most of the nation’s 35 biggest markets.

Employers are increasingly stressed about housing problems, based on calls to a major provider of employee assistance programs, sometimes known as EAPs.

ComPsych Corp., among the largest providers of such programs, says that in the first half of this year, for the first time it received more calls about housing woes than childcare needs. That’s a major shift that shows just how big of a problem the housing crisis continues to be, even for working Americans.

ComPsych said calls about moving rose by 14 percent in the first half of the year, as compared to the previous six months. The increase was driven largely by employees dealing with foreclosure or the need to find more affordable housing.

Housing was the No. 1 problem for employees with 10,250 calls, compared with 8,000 calls related to childcare needs, usually the top problem.

A slump in the housing market has been a major factor in the recession and weak economic recovery. The Commerce Department said Tuesday that housing starts grew by 10.5 percent in August from a month earlier, driven largely by increases in condominium and apartment construction. Still, the figures are very weak by historical standards.

Employees are facing other stresses related to the economy as well. ComPsych said it received 4,250 calls about caring for elderly relatives, with many seeking less expensive options. That was a 23 percent increase in that category.

Another 2,500 called the employee assistance lines with health-related questions, up 11 percent over the previous six months. Many were seeking lower-cost options for medical care.

ComPsych serves about 33 million individuals at 13,000 companies worldwide.

The headlines on housing today offered some good news about home prices: they rose in June for the third straight month.

But while the scene in the rear-view mirror was hopeful, the road ahead still looks pretty rocky.

June, you’ll recall, was the last month the government offered an $8,000 tax credit to first-time homebuyers, sending house hunters flocking to the market. Unfortunately, home sales plunged after the credit expired. Some housing analysts worry that the credit just sped up sales that would have happened anyway, stealing demand from the second half of the year.

It's the second time the Obama administration has offered the credit to jump-start the market - with only limited success. A third round is under consideration, but the White House hasn't yet decided whether to go ahead with it.

With more than 12 months worth of inventory looking for buyers, foreclosures are still flooding the market with new homes; bankers are listing them at discount prices to sell them quickly. A stubbornly high unemployment rate is keeping millions of potential homebuyers on the sidelines. All of which could send house prices back down again.

The national averages mask sharp regional differences: prices aren't falling everywhere. And there are several different indexes tracking national and regional home prices. But they're all showing the same trends. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index released Tuesday, for example, showed a 1 percent increase in June from May and a 4.2 percent gain from a year ago. Nationwide, the average price of home has risen 6 percent from April 2009, when the index hit bottom. Prices are still 28 percent below the July 2006 peak.

Something to keep in mind if you’re trying to sell your house. If you do find a potential buyer, be prepared to price aggressively.

You’ll also have to get creative about trying to stick out among the pack. For some ideas about on selling your house in a lousy market, check out this story by my Msnbc.com colleague Allison Linn, who polled real estate agents in several markets for their best advice on how to sell your home.

Here are a few business headlines that grabbed our attention this weekend:

How Obama got rolled by Wall Street

In defense of homeownership

Why I'm happy I walked away from my mortgage

Microsoft dipping billion-dollar toe into smart phone pool

Our friends at ProPublica have come up with the latest in a series of investigative stories shedding light on the obscure world of Wall Street derivatives that were at the heart of the housing bubble and collapse.

The story, by investigative reporters Jake Bernstein and Jesse Eisinger, focuses on how Merrill Lynch and other financial outfits “created fake demand” to prop up the market for so-called collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs.

Trying to understand the “daisy chain” transactions that lined pockets on Wall Street -- and made it easy to get a mortgage – can be some pretty heavy slogging. But just as they did with their previous investigation into a hedge fund called Magnetar, ProPublica and their partners at NPR’s Planet Money leaven the mix with comedy.

In the Magnetar case, the producers behind the story commissioned a pretty hilarious Broadway-style song, “Bet Against the American Dream.”

This time around, there is a great comic strip explaining how CDOs work, along with this very funny video from Auto-Tune the News, titled “Bankers’ Song – We Didn’t See It Comin.’” Suddenly, it all makes sense.

Having a hard time getting credit? So is everyone else, from homebuyers to businesses. After the rogue lending wave of the past decade, bankers have gotten very choosy about extending credit.

That’s going to be a hot topic at a meeting of Federal Reserve officials who are gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyo., for their annual thinkfest. This year, they’ve got a lot on their plate.

The dismal housing market, for one. Despite the Fed’s moves to slash interest rates to the bone and shell out over a $1 trillion to buy shaky mortgage bonds, home sales have fallen through the floor. It’s not that mortgages are too expensive; the average rate on a 30-year fixed loan fell to 4.36 percent this week, the best deal for home buyers since Freddie Mac began tracking rates in 1971.

The problem is that the Fed’s rate-slashing hasn’t prodded skittish lenders to take on more risk. With home prices still falling in many parts of the country, lenders are looking at continued losses from all the bad mortgages they wrote during the housing boom. The latest numbers on mortgage delinquencies from the Mortgage Bankers Assn won’t do much to calm lenders’ nerves.

The number of homeowners falling behind on their mortgage payments seems to be topping out, but roughly one in ten mortgage holders face foreclosure. Forecasters at Capital Economics figure that means as many as four million households may lose their homes; that's on top of the nearly three million homes that have already been lost.

So what’s a central banker to do? Unfortunately, the folks at the Fed have few options. They can buy more bonds, pushing long-term rates even lower. But that will hurt consumers, who are already getting paid next to nothing on their savings accounts.

One idea Fed Chairman Bernanke & Co. are looking at: stop paying banks interest to keep their money in the Fed’s vaults. With bankers so skittish, paying them not to lend may be doing more harm than good. The Fed could even charge banks interest to stash their cash, giving them more incentive to start lending it again.

If you’re trying to sell your home in Bend, Ore., no one would blame you for thinking the real estate crisis is more like a housing Armageddon.

But if you’re a home seller in Springfield, Ill., you might well be wondering if this housing crisis is at least bottoming out.

Home sale prices in the Bend area have fallen by nearly 19 percent over the past year ended June 30 - the biggest drop of any metropolitan area - according to calculations released Wednesday by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Including this year's drop, housing prices in the outdoorsy central Oregon area are down by more than 15 percent over a five year period ended June 30, the agency reported.

But in the Midwestern city of Springfield, Ill., housing prices rose - albeit by a meager 2.68 percent - over the year, and are up nearly 10 percent for the five-year period.

Other metropolitan areas that saw small year-over-year gains include Dubuque, Iowa, and the areas surrounding San Jose and Anaheim, Calif.

Still, the news was not all good for even the areas seeing housing prices rise: Both California metropolitan areas are still seeing significantly lower prices than five years ago.

And home sellers in the Bend area still have plenty of company across the country. The FHFA reported that housing prices fell by more than 15 percent over a year ago in six other metropolitan areas, including Ocala, Fla., Lakeland-Winter Haven, Fla., and the Reno, Nev., area.

Overall, the federal agency said U.S. house prices fell 1.7 percent in June, as compared to a year earlier.

The silving lining: Anyone looking to buy a home may find a good bargain, if they can get a loan approved. At this point, however, there appear to be few willing to take the plunge. The National Association of Realtors said Tuesday that sales of previously occupied homes plunged last month to the lowest level in 15 years.

Update: Also Wednesday, new home sales fell to the slowest pace on record, another sign that housing is still in the doldrums.

How is the housing market in your area? Check out the full report here and discuss below.

Today’s housing numbers reported by the National Association of Realtors were uniformly awful. July was the worst month for sales of single-family homes since May 1995, the trade group said.

A breakout for 20 big urban markets shows that even the “best” city, San Diego, posted sales that were down 15 percent from a year ago, in July 2009.

In Minneapolis, the worst of the markets, sales were down 42 percent.

Even though sales were down in most markets, the median price was up a bit in some. Boston posted the best result on pricing, with the median price up 7.6 percent over year-ago levels, even as sales of previously occupied homes dropped 26 percent.

In Atlanta, it was the worst of both worlds; sales were down 17 percent and the median price of a home sold fell 11 percent.

The Realtors blamed the sharp drop on the expiration of a federal tax credit early this year. The tax credit clearly juiced sales in late 2009 and early this year. Now that all those deals have closed, sales have fallen off a cliff.

Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors, tried to put a bit of a positive spin on the report but said the current sales “pause” is likely to last through September.

“However, given the rock-bottom mortgage interest rates and historically high housing affordability conditions, the pace of a sales recovery could pick up quickly, provided the economy consistently adds jobs," Yun said.

That, of course, is a big if.

Read the full release with a link to city-by-city statistics, here.

http://www.realtor.org/press_room/news_releases/2010/08/ehs_fall