“It is a wild time in the labor market because, on the one hand, from many vantage points, the data look good. The claims, the data this morning, continue to be remarkably low. The unemployment rate remains historically low. Layoffs, despite the news about layoffs, also really low. But then if you look at people trying to find a new job or thinking about changing jobs in order to get a higher wage, those numbers aren't looking so good. And that's probably what people are feeling.”

People who feel richer spend richer, but that also means Spingle says if AI stumbles, we all stumble. In New York, I'm Sabri Benishore for Marketplace.

…she said to me, you know, if I went outside and stopped 10 people on the street and told them about the data about GDP is growing, job market, while, you know, weird is reasonably strong, they would look at me like I had three heads. And I guess that's the question I throw to you. What is going on?

Do you suppose this lasts? I mean, it does seem we've been saying low hire, low fire for a very long time. And I guess I wonder what you think the short, medium term issues.

Yeah, well, I mean, honestly, in many ways, I'm somewhat heartened by its persistence because for a while there, I thought that with the layoffs being low, but hires also being low, that the next step might be the shoe drops and layoffs go up. But we haven't seen that. And so it's kind of the…

Right. So the labor market, meh, you know, nominally fine, but meh, really, in perceived reality. I want you to answer this next question without using the word inflation. Other than the labor market, why are people so cranky out there?