Until recently, determining the cadence of the U.S. economy and job market was relatively straightforward as the nation transitioned to the pandemic recovery. Now the task for economists has given way to growing uncertainty as inflation sits at a four-decade high, borrowing costs climb, and the back beat of recession grows louder.

"There's a lot of ambiguity right now in the economy, and it's hard to understand and parse what's going on—never mind trying to understand what's going to happen over the next few months," said Nick Bunker, economic research director at jobs website Indeed Inc.

Economists don't tend to look at any given indicator in a vacuum. Instead, they consider a wide variety of data when making projections about the health of the economy. Even so, here are a few popular indicators—and how one can view sustained downward movements in each through a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty perspective: