In its budget presentation last Monday, the city said that, locally speaking, this recession shouldn’t be as bad as the last one. In the nine days since, the Defense Secretary announced a budget that would slash Boeing’s defense programs, Boeing announced layoffs (with experts predicting more), and now new numbers confirm previous predictions: after the most precipitous decline in over three decades, the state’s unemployment rate–which is now higher than the national one–is at 9.2% and likely headed toward double digits. Meanwhile, Seattle is hot on its heels, having shot up from just under 5% to 8.2% in just three months. Finally, while economists can’t seem to agree whether it’s good or bad in the big picture–at least not in this AP article–you won’t have to pay as much for the lemonade being squeezed from this onslaught of lemons: year-over-year consumer prices fell for the first time since 1955.