The R-word, recession, is floating about and you can thank at least in part data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. That branch of the Fed has a gross domestic product (GDP) tracker on its website that "provides a 'nowcast' of the official estimate prior to its release by estimating GDP growth using a methodology similar to the one used by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis." 

No official body is saying there's a recession. That's the job of the nonprofit National Bureau of Economic Research, which doesn't directly work for the government and so is potentially less likely to let political advantage persuade it to say there is or is not a recession.

But the BEA does estimate GDP and since the 1970s, a rough estimate for a recession is a period of economic decline that starts with two consecutive quarters of falling GDP. The first quarter had negative GDP growth and that's where the Atlanta Fed's GDP tracker steps onto center stage.