FACTBOX: President-elect Obama facing battered economy

(Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, due to take office next Tuesday, will inherit an economy mired in a recession that could be the worst since the Great Depression.

The following is a look at recent economic data that underscores the economy's fragile condition:

* Sales at U.S. retailers slumped 2.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted $343.2 billion in December, pushing sales for the whole of 2008 down 0.1 percent. Excluding motor vehicles and parts, sales fell a record 3.1 percent after a 2.5 percent decline in November.

* U.S. employers cut 524,000 jobs in December, driving the unemployment rate to 7.2 percent, its highest level in nearly 16 years. In all of 2008, 2.6 million people lost their jobs, the largest slump in employment since 1945.

* U.S. factory activity tumbled to a 28-year low in December. The Institute for Supply Management's index of national factory activity fell to 32.4 -- the lowest since 1980 -- from 36.2 in November.

* The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.5 percent annual pace in the third quarter, the steepest decline since the third quarter of 2001. Consumer spending dropped by 3.8 percent for the sharpest pull-back since 1980, when a global oil crisis tipped the economy toward a prolonged slowdown.