Surprise, you've got medical bills!

The quiet weeks are often the most revealing, and this Friday episode of Marketplace found the economy in a strange place: stocks near records, consumers feeling glum, and a new healthcare billing crisis hitting employers who thought they were protected. The dominant thread running through the conversation was a growing sense that the economy is splitting along lines that are becoming harder to ignore.

The low-hire, low-fire trap

The labor market looks stable on the surface, but Heather Long of Navy Federal Credit Union pushed back hard against the comfortable "low hire, low fire" framing. "Another way to say low hire, low fire is low opportunity," she said. The latest jobs report showed hiring concentrated in just two pockets: healthcare and construction for data centers. "For everybody else it's slim pickens, and that's why a lot of Americans feel stuck right now." The silver lining she pointed to was a surge in new business formation — people creating their own opportunities because the traditional job market isn't providing them.

Maybe the stock market actually is the economy