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A spike in the unemployment rate - the biggest in more than two decades - raised new concerns Friday that a weak labor outlook, high oil prices and continuing woes in the housing and credit markets are leading the U.S. economy into a painful recession. The government said Friday that the unemployment rate soared to 5.5% in May from 5% in April - much higher than economists had forecast. The surge marked the biggest one-month jump in unemployment since February 1986, and the 5.5% rate is the highest level seen since October 2004. Unemployment is now a full percentage point higher than it was a year ago. "You're not going to have a lot of people arguing 'no recession' with this data," said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute.