Remember back in high school algebra class when we learned about the slope of a line? It refers to how steep the line is.

Well, both the Lehigh Valley economy and the national economy had been in a sudden and severe decline -- a steep slope downward if you plotted our collective financial health on a graph. A skier might have called it a ''black diamond'' slope, so steep and dangerous only experts would be wise to try it.

But there's a tamer bunny slope in our future, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke predicted Tuesday.

In essence, Bernanke takes solace in the fact that the economy is declining at a slower rate. It doesn't mean things are getting better yet. It just means they're getting bad slower. On a graph, the slope has to stop going down before it can go up.

All that might sound like finding a silver lining in a cloud without one. But it's significant. And it's happening in the Lehigh Valley region too.

''The fall has been so steep, but now it looks like things are getting less negative,'' said Robert Wendt, director of research for the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. ''There's wisdom in that.''

Tim Schiller, a senior economic analyst at the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, says it a different way: ''We seem to be in a situation where we are seeing a slowdown in the slowdown,'' he said. ''We're picking up a little more sense that things are not getting a whole lot worse.''

Schiller said Bernanke's comments Tuesday apply to most regions across the country. ''And looking at some of the Allentown [region's] numbers, I would say it's pretty similar,'' he said.

One of the few forward-looking economic indicators the Lehigh Valley can refer to is a quarterly survey conducted by Bethlehem market researcher and economist Kamran Afshar. He asks local purchasing managers, those who buy stuff for companies, about their buying and hiring plans for the next six months.

His most recent survey? You guessed it -- less negative.

''For the first time, looking six months ahead, they are not as pessimistic as they were in January,'' Afshar said. ''It's not a huge change, but it's a measurable change.''

''They think it will be less worse.''

At Prudential Patt, White Real Estate, sales figures from March showed a slower worsening, said Brad Patt, senior vice president of the 300-agent firm. ''It was less bad, if you will,'' he said.

He recently received April sales numbers, which actually show an increase over last year in both home sales and prices. That's something that hasn't happened ''in a while,'' he said. ''Locally, we're beginning to turn a little bit on price,'' Patt said. ''Monthly supply of inventory is trickling down, and that's impacting price.''

Loren Keim, president of Century 21 Keim Realtors in Allentown, also thinks a corner has been turned. ''The market in the first quarter was incredibly ugly,'' he said. ''But I do think we're very close to bottom. I don't think we'll see much more in price erosion this year.''

A combination of pent-up demand, low mortgage rates and incentives for first-time home buyers will conspire to drive more activity. Keim said his office recently has been scheduling more home showings and seeing more sale offers.

The job scene might be a different story.

Unemployment in the Lehigh Valley is clearly bad. The jobless rate is 8.3 percent, a 23-year high. Some 35,000 local residents are out of work. But the number of job losses slowed in March, and the unemployment rate worsened at a slower rate. Projecting a trend from one month's unemployment numbers is foolish, especially because the employment market always lags in an economic recovery.

Still, at least for one month, the downward slope in employment data was less steep. Don't get too excited, though. Bernanke, Afshar, Wendt and a slew of other economics wonks expect things to get worse before they get better, with no jobs recovery until 2010.

Business relocation and expansion has been slow for months, but in recent weeks has shown signs of life, Wendt said. ''In the last two or three weeks, now people are picking up some contracts,'' he said. ''Is it pervasive? Is there a statistic you can go to? No.'' But it's happening, he said.

However, businesses are still having trouble securing financing because of stingy lending by banks. And commercial real estate remains a bargain.

So perhaps the downward black diamond-like slope of economic badness is, indeed, flattening. Or perhaps its trajectory is showing signs of what some in the finance world indelicately call a ''dead cat bounce.'' That derives from the notion that even a dead cat, if it falls from a great height, will bounce.

gregory.karp@mcall.com

610-820-6643