You got your rock, you got your hard place, you got this economy pretty much stuck right in the middle.

From American public media, this is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizzdahl.

It is Friday today.

This one is the 6th of March.

Good as always, to have you along, everybody.

Just to be completely clear here, the rock is inflation, higher than we want, and most assuredly going higher in no small part because war

is inflationary. The hard place is the labor market, which we learned today, well, it's a bit more

challenged than we all had probably thought. The economy, well, that's us, and it's where we're

going to start today. Sudip Reddy is at MS. Now, Courtney Brown, is it Axios. Hey, you two.

Hi, hi, hi. Courtney, you get to go first. Jobs, we lost 92,000 of them. Unemployment rate ticked up.

I would like you to discuss for me in the next 45 seconds what you make of that given oh, everything.

Wait, like we learned earlier in the week from ADP and other private sector data that

maybe the labor market was on better footing.

I wrote a story that said that momentum was the story of February and then 830 this morning hits. And it's like, oh, never mind. Maybe the strong job gains that the government reported in January was a little bit of a head fake. And maybe the story really has been intact the whole time, that this labor market has a very soft underbelly. And that's a concern for

everyday Americans, for economists, and for the Fed. I love how you started with, wait,

and you're like offended at what the data said. I'm upset. Shadip Reddy. I know. Look,

I hear you, man. I hear you.

Sudeep, if I use the word stagflation now, because economic growth is happening still, but look,

there's a war on and oil prices are up and who knows what's going to happen.

And inflation is still too high.

Is stagflation?

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