Moody’s: 40 percent chance of double dip recession

There's a 40 percent chance that the United States will fall into a double-dip recession in the next year, a top economic forecaster says.

The economy is facing pressure from the European debt crisis, the weak housing market, and Washington dysfunction, according to a Moody's Analytics report released Tuesday. The report comes bearing the grim title "Macro Outlook: Barely Staying Afloat."

"Policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic must intervene," Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi said. "In our baseline outlook, the U.S. will avoid recession only because we expect policymakers to act in the next few months."

The Great Recession officially lasted from December 2007 until June 2009. But the recovery since then has been halting, and in recent months analyst have voiced the renewed fear that the economy could slip back into another downturn.