Was Friday's jobs report a warning?

David Altig over at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (see here) asks: "Is the employment report a game changer?"  He has a chart that will make you uncomfortable (see below, click to enlarge).

About the chart, he says:

The bottom line of this chart is that there has been a pretty reliable relationship between sustained bouts of sub-2 percent growth and U.S. recessions (indicated by the gray shaded areas). In fact, over the entire post-World War II era, periods in which year-over-year real GDP growth below 2 percent have been almost always associated with downturns in the economy. 

Mark Thoma over at Economist View (see here) has some clear thoughts about the above chart and the meaning of the jobs report.  He considers the question:  "How close are we to a second recession?"  He concludes with the following:

The White House and Congress are devoting all of their energy to deficit reduction rather than job creation. As highlighted by yesterday's horrid jobs report, and the fact that deficit reduction will place an additional drag on the recovery, that's something they may come to regret.