The stock market may not be the real economy, but red-hot U.S. stock price gains offer more than a fuzzy feel-good factor for many households. The rise in stock-based worker compensation may help bind the two more closely.
One of the puzzles of recent years has been how a bumpy post-pandemic ride of spiking inflation and interest rates, along with political and trade uncertainty, failed to tip the wider U.S. economy into recession.
