Not so much fake, as manufactured.

The jobs market was doing well, unemployment was low. Many middle-class people had been working remotely for two years, and saved thousands in commuting costs. The housing market was leveling out, prices were reasonable, and interest rates were low.

People were finally starting to feel an inkling of security and independence. They could afford to buy a house, change jobs, sell the second car, and put some money away for a rainy day.

Which is a nightmare scenario for corporations that feed on a financially desperate populace.

So corporations jacked up prices, blaming supply-chain issues, forced workers back into the office, and laid off thousands despite record profits.

The Fed pitched in, hiking interest rates, and locking millions of Americans out of the housing market, and with it, their best path to financial independence, and vowed to keep those rates high until the unemployment rate was back at a level that the Corporate masters determined sufficiently punitive, and the working class had exhausted their savings.

When the workers are acceptably cowed, and the wealthy are satisfied that they will no longer resist subjugation, they will declare the economy ‘back to normal’