A recession would be worse than this

With inflation, there are actually winners and losers. “One person’s cost is another person’s income,” Bivens notes, pointing to record oil company profits, for example.

Rents and home prices go up; landlords and home sellers benefit.

Bivens — who is typically on the side of labor, not capital — doesn’t applaud this kind of redistribution of wealth, he adds. But a recession “would have worse distributional consequences.”

With a recession, everyone loses — not just the unemployed. Even if you hang on to your job, raises vanish, advancement opportunities narrow or disappear. “The economy overall is poorer,” Bivens says.

Young adults starting their careers would have fewer job options, too.