My kids are into memes and have been since, well, the beginning of meme history. Given that my husband and I both are economists, it was only natural that a recent family dinner conversation centered around which meme would best represent inflation.

Wages are the bridge between job growth and rising inflation, and their trajectory will determine whether the Federal Reserve can put the brakes on rising prices without skidding the economy into recession. To that end, the central bank is eying one particular data point with new intensity.

Savings accounts were the unsung heroes of the pandemic recovery. The personal saving rate – the share of a person’s disposable income left after taxes and spending on necessities and everything else – soared to a record of almost 34 percent in April 2020. That means people saved 34 cents for every dollar earned in the early days of the pandemic.