The U.S. economy continues to lose momentum, writes the Wall Street Journal. It finally seems that the cumulative impact of years of inflation is finally catching up with U.S. consumers and eroding their savings cushion—something that companies selling discretionary goods from Starbucks to Kohl’s are saying in their public quarterly financial reports.

In short, signs of an U.S. economic slowdown are becoming hard to ignore.

Labor market are a lagging indicator, meaning they show up later than other signs when an economic shift occurs. The early signals are already here.