NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Crude's surge last week took its price to an eye-popping $100 a barrel. The rise comes on top of a 57 percent jump for 2007 and puts oil within reach of its all-time inflation-adjusted high above $102, hit back in 1980.

The latest jump means that Americans can expect to pay more for everything from gasoline to food and clothes. Those rising prices threaten to constrict consumer spending, which is repsonsible for more than two-thirds of domestic economic activity.

A sharp consumer slowdown would be bad news indeed, because the economy is already showing signs of strain. The government reported Friday that only 18,000 jobs were created last month, a mere fraction of the number needed to keep up with population growth. The Institute for Supply Management's factory index dropped below 50 in December, a sign manufacturing work is contracting.

So will $100-a-barrel oil be the straw that breaks the economy's back? Probably not.

After all, growth has persistently chugged along now for four years despite ever-increasing oil prices. Obviously, another huge rise in oil prices this year wouldn't help the economy - but it's not at all apparent that it would break it either. "We must accept the notion that at some point there's a price people won't pay" for oil, says Howard Simons, an oil industry veteran who has been measuring oil's impact on the economy for 30 years. But crude oil has seen its price rise fivefold in just six years, he adds, and "we haven't even approached the point of crimping consumer spending."

Simons notes that unemployment, at 5 percent, remains historically low, and that consumer spending hasn't fallen off a cliff even as foreclosures spike and house prices plunge. Moreover, history shows that trying to predict a recession is daunting.

Simons notes that just four years ago, a spike in oil prices took the price tag on a barrel of crude oil to $40 - a level many observers viewed as unsustainable. Voices predicting imminent recession grew louder as crude surged past $50, $60 and $70 a barrel. Yet as weak as parts of the economy now look - house prices are in free fall in much of the country and wage growth has been anemic - a sharp pullback in economic activity has yet to manifest itself.

Indeed, despite Friday's weak labor report, "These jobs gains indicate the economy did not enter a recession in the fourth quarter of 2008," writes Peter Morici, an economist at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business.

The economy's resilience is due in part to gains in energy efficiency over the past quarter-century, since the last oil shock. Ken Medlock, a fellow in energy studies at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, also notes an energy-saving shift from a manufacturing-led economy in the 1970s and 1980s to today's service-oriented economy. He says that the price of crude oil would need to soar to $140 a barrel in order to bring the per-mile cost of driving, for example, back to 1980 levels.

Efficiency gains and economic flexibility are two reasons Medlock, for one, doesn't expect to see triple-digit crude prices throw the economy into contraction. "I don't think we're going to see a pullback like in the 1970s and 1980s," he says. He adds that while the housing and auto markets are showing clear signs of an economywide slowdown, he believes the United States will avoid a deep recession unless there's some sort of unexpected shock.

For his part, Simons believes the rising price of crude will come to be seen as a footnote in a history of this era. He expects coming years to be dominated by the cleanup of the housing mess. Even aside from the foreclosures sweeping the nation and wiping out homeowners, he points to billions of dollars of bad loans that threaten the health of the banking system. Banks that are busy raising money to sop up their losses will be inclined to tighten the reins on lending, possibly starving business expansion.

"We dodged one deflationary recession" after the tech bubble burst in 2000, he says. "Now the question is whether we can dodge another."  

SINGAPORE (AP) -- Oil prices fell Monday as a report of growing unemployment in the United States raised concerns of an economic downturn there that could curb demand for oil.

The U.S. Labor Department said the unemployment rate jumped to 5 percent in December - its highest level in more than two years - from 4.7 percent in November. Analysts had expected December unemployment at 4.8 percent.

"Many economists in the U.S. have talked about the potential of the U.S. getting into a recession," said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. "This latest government report ... has added to the concerns about the economy."

Light, sweet crude for February delivery dropped 57 cents to $97.34 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midafternoon in Singapore. The contract fell $1.27 to settle at $97.91 a barrel on Friday.

The government also said in the report that employers created just 18,000 jobs last month, less than the 70,000 analysts had expected and the smallest increase since August 2003.

Traders are becoming more concerned that record high energy prices are helping to push the economy into recession.

"If the U.S. goes into a significant downturn, that will impact oil demand there," Shum said. "If it goes into recession, that may also affect other economies, for example, demand in high-growth China could also slow down."

Any slowdown in the U.S. economy would hurt exporters in Asia that rely heavily on American consumer demand for sales and growth.

Energy traders could have interpreted the jobs data positively - in recent months, oil prices have often moved higher after the government reported dismal economic data because traders believe signs of economic weakness raise the chances that the Fed will cut interest rates. Lower interest rates weaken the dollar, whose decline has contributed to more expensive oil.

But analysts say a recession is seen as much more important to long-term energy prices than the easy money that is a byproduct of lower interest rates.

In London, Brent crude futures fell 27 cents to $96.52 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Heating oil futures fell 1.08 cents to $2.6727 a gallon while gasoline prices dropped 0.83 cents to $2.5027 a gallon. Natural gas futures added 0.1 cent to $7.842 per 1,000 cubic feet.