The two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee beginning Monday will be the focus in the upcoming week. The FOMC will have a lot of economic news and data to chew on when it meets, most of it continuing to be negative, suggesting the committee will vote to drop the target Fed Funds rate below 1.0% for the first time ever.

To be sure, not all of the news in the last week was bad. Friday, for example, brought word that the producer price index grew at a subdued pace tamping inflationary expectations. And, Friday as well, the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey showed a slight improvement in consumer attitudes – but that improvement was driven by the “current conditions” index and more reflected declines in gasoline prices and mortgage interest rates than optimism about economic conditions.

To the extent we could see optimism, it may have been in an otherwise negative report on retail sales for November – again a brief snapshot. Yes, retail sales fell in November, but the report reflects actual prices paid and the price of a gallon of gasoline, about 10% of all retail sales, continued to slide.

A less-followed but broader report Thursday on the economy – with an historic perspective – showed just how far the household sector has slipped and been hurt in the lingering downturn. The report, the quarterly “Flow of Funds” tabulation by the Federal Reserve, is a comprehensive look at the balance sheets of key sectors of the economy, including households, with detailed information about the levels of household ownership of several types of assets, including government securities, mutual funds, stocks, homes and levels of bank deposits and debt.

According to the most recent report, household assets fell for the fourth consecutive quarter for the first time since the Fed started tracking the data in 1952.

The third quarter data suggested households are stretched further under the strain of falling home values and higher debt as household leverage – measuring debt as a percentage of net worth – jumped to a record high with the steepest quarter-quarter growth since 2003. The increase from 3Q 2007 was the highest year-year increase ever. These are not record worthy of boast.

The data also showed even though house values have fallen, homes still represent the largest share of household net worth (assets less debt) at 15.1%, stock investments represent 12.8%, down from 13.8% in the second quarter and 15.7% just a year ago. At their peak in 1968, stocks represented more than a quarter of household net worth.

Also important is that fact that retiring baby boomer household pension fund reserves fell for the fourth straight quarter to the lowest level since 2005, suggesting older workers may try to extend employment.

On the corporate side, the report showed the “financing gap,” which is the difference between (non-financial) business capital spending and available cash flow – thus measuring corporate needs – fell by more than 50% from the second quarter to the third, a function of a drop in capital spending and businesses hoarding cash.

It is just that logjam the FOMC hopes to break in its meeting Tuesday even though previous attempts to prod credit markets with interest rate cuts haven’t been successful.

There will be more than just the FOMC next week with a calendar stressing the manufacturing sector -- the December Empire State Manufacturing Survey and November Industrial Production on Monday and the December Philadelphia Fed Survey on Friday. Sandwiched between those reports will be the November Consumer Price Index report and data on November housing starts.

Mark Lieberman is the senior economist for the Fox Business Network. Prior to joining FOX, he served as first vice president and manager of economic analysis and research at Washington Mutual in New York. Before that, he served as senior vice president at Dime Savings Bank of New York (which was later acquired by Washington Mutual), where he specialized in credit and risk management. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the New York Association for Business Economics. He has a degree in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.