Top economist Mark Zandi says the indicator that has called every recession since WWII just signaled we're already in one

Photo of Mark Zandi (Credit: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Economists have spent months debating whether a recession is on the horizon. One economic indicator predicts most of those arguments are already moot.

Mark Zandi, the top economist at Moody’s Analytics, said the U.S. economy could already be in a recession, according to the Vicious Cycle Index (VCI), an economic indicator Zandi and his colleagues created.