Americans Are Right to Be Worried About the Labor Market

According to just about every significant economic indicator, including the December jobs numbers released Friday, the US economy is doing fine. Not great, mind you: Job growth stalled in 2025. But unemployment is low, gross domestic product growth is solid, and inflation is seemingly trending downward.

Yet as consumer expectations surveys, political polls and even election results keep making clear, Americans are extremely dissatisfied with how things are going on the economic front. This seeming disconnect between perception and reality has been the subject of much analysis, with partisanship, increasing negativity in both traditional and social media and lingering anger over the inflation wave of 2021 and 2022 probably the most frequently mentioned explanations.