It’s safe to say we’ve never seen an economy quite as weird as this one, warped by some $5 trillion in domestic stimulus, a war in Ukraine, a recovery from a pandemic, and the stop-start of COVID-containment policies in China’s manufacturing hubs. As a result, the basic question on everyone’s minds — Is the economy good or bad? — is exceedingly difficult to answer. Voters, for their part, have already decided: A CNN poll shows that only 18 percent of Americans think the economy is in decent shape.

It’s hardly a surprise that those struggling to fill the tank aren’t celebrating that unemployment has matched its lowest point since 1969. (Which suggests one reason people are dissatisfied: Inflation affects everyone, while the ups and downs of the labor market are largely the concern of the unemployed.) It’s this disparity between the numbers and lived experience that led Kyla Scanlon, a financial educator and influencer, to call current economic conditions a “vibecession.” People are relying on their gut to determine the state of the economy because of the haunting feeling that any crumb of data used to explain the world may be irrelevant or canceled out by something else.

The concept of a vibecession may feel like a cop-out. But it’s a good starting point for understanding where we’re really at. “This moment of cognitive dissonance is useful to make us question our framework to begin with,” says Martha Ross, a senior fellow focusing on the labor market at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program. “A low unemployment rate is a crucial measure, but it’s not the only measure,” Ross adds. “We shouldn’t be measuring economic health only by the unemployment rate and by inflation. We need to look at: Are people earning enough to live on? What kinds of jobs are we creating?” If we adjust that framework a bit, a legible, serviceable picture of the economy takes shape.