America’s biggest companies are struggling. With revenues collapsing and debt troubles escalating, America’s corporate landscape may be about to be transformed. Forbes magazine just may have to issue a new list next year: the Unfortunate 500.

The top 500 U.S. companies by revenue are known as the Fortune 500. Unfortunately, 2008 was the worst year ever for the cream of America’s business crops. The list, published for the past 55 years, shows that overall profits for the companies in 2008 plunged an astounding 84.7 percent from the previous year to $98.9 billion.

The figures would have been even more disastrous had the price of oil not soared to $140 per barrel last year. Strip out Exxon Mobile and Chevron’s profits, and the total net profit for America’s top 500 companies would have been a minuscule $30 billion—a huge drop from 2007’s $645 billion in profits.

Other records were broken as well. Eleven of the top 25 largest corporate losses in list history took place last year.

Thirty-eight corporate giants disappeared from the Fortune 500 list altogether, in a puff of bankruptcy (Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers), mergers and forced government mergers (Wrigley’s, Wachovia, Merrill Lynch) or foreign takeovers (Anheuser Busch).

The struggles of America’s big companies are coming closer to home for many Americans. One out of every six workers in America was employed by a Fortune 500 company last year—the operative word being “was.”

As American businesses attempt to regain profitability, payrolls will likely be slashed.

The danger is that with so many companies cutting back, the mass layoffs could become a self-fulfilling cycle. Higher general unemployment means less consumer spending, which leads to further profit reductions and thus the temptation for companies to trim even more jobs.

“Everything that happens in business in the United States shows up in one way or another in the 500,” says Carol Loomis, Fortune senior editor-at-large. “It’s a mirror to the economy.”

Unfortunately, a look in the glass doesn’t show a very pretty picture right now. The reflection is a cracking economy and a future of further job losses on the way.