First, the good news. The big-picture trend for the US economy continues to look encouraging. The three-month average of the Chicago Fed National Activity Index rose to +0.25 in November—the highest since February 2012. As a result, US economic growth is running at its strongest pace in nearly two years.

Consumer spending was also bubbly in November. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased 0.5% last month over October, the best monthly comparison since June and the seventh straight month of higher spending.

“Jobs are growing, confidence is growing, households and asset values are climbing,” notes Paul Edelstein, director of financial economics at IHS. “There appears to be some sort of gathering momentum in the economy.”

So it’s all peaches and cream? Not quite. There’s always something to worry about and the sluggish trend in income growth is at the top of the list these days. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased a light 0.1% in November, which falls short of making up the lost ground in October’s 0.2% decline.

Monthly data is noisy and so it’s best to focus on the year-over-year comparisons for a clearer look at the trend. Unfortunately, the numbers for income don’t look encouraging on this front either. DPI’s annual change continues to slump, rising only 1.5% last month vs. a year ago. That’s a sharp deceleration from October’s 2.6% year-over-year rate. It’s also the second-slowest pace of growth this year.

If income growth continues to slow (or perhaps turn negative in the near future?), that will be a dark sign for consumer spending. For the moment, the two indicators are moving in opposite directions, but the divergence will soon be corrected. The only question: will spending slow or income rise?

The outcome will be favorable if the labor market continues to post improving numbers, as it has in recent months. More jobs, after all, translate into more income. Recent updates have brought modestly better news. The three-month average gain for private payrolls, for instance, has been running at 190,000-plus through October and November. That’s higher than the sluggish 158,000-to-167,000-three-month range during the July-through-September period.

The question is whether this lagging data will soon give way to the darker clouds implied by this month’s worrisome trend in initial jobless claims? New filings for unemployment benefits have surged recently: reaching the highest level since March for the week through December 14. Is this leading indicator dropping bearish clues for 2014? It’s too soon to say. Indeed, claims data is notoriously volatile in the short term. But in the wake of today’s deceleration in personal income, we can’t dismiss the potential, however remote at this stage, that the labor market may hit a new round of turbulence in the months to come. We’ll know morevafter Thursday’s update on jobless claims. The crowd’s expecting some good news: the consensus forecast sees claims dropping by more than a trivial degree, according to Briefing.com.

Meantime, consumers are spending more and economic growth has strengthened. The slowdown in income, however, looks like a speed bump. Perhaps Thursday’s jobless claims data will tell us if we should (or shouldn’t) worry.

Let’s begin by recognizing the US dollar has strengthened over the last two years. The idea that the currency was headed for the ash heap of forex history looks foolish at the moment. The trade-weighted measure of the greenback against the major currencies has been trending higher since 2011 and is roughly unchanged from the months preceding the start of the Great Recession. So much for debasement.

Meanwhile, inflation risk continues to look unusually low. The Fed’s preferred measure—personal consumption expenditures less food and energy, aka core PCE—is rising at just over 1% a year lately, or well below the central bank’s 2% target.

So what might alter inflation’s trend and move us closer to the dark fears of the hard money crowd? The sky’s the limit when it comes to possibilities. If you’re looking for colorful narratives on how inflation will threaten these United States, the world is awash in hazardous potential. Reasonable narratives, on the other hand, are another matter. In any case, the future’s still uncertain but one of the more intriguing outlines of what may happen is bound up with how the Fed will reduce its balance sheet in the months and years ahead. It remains to be seen if the reversal of monetary stimulus will be handled smoothly, in which case inflation’s inevitable rise will be a relatively low-risk affair. But there’s no guarantee. So what should we expect for inflation? On that question, one dismal scientist outlined a framework that’s worthy of attention.

David Beckworth observes that the annual rate of change in the Fed’s holdings of Treasuries lately has a tendency to lead the core inflation by roughly six to nine months, as the chart below shows. Note that the year-over-year rate in Treasury holdings (red line) has been trending higher since late-2012, rising more than 30% recently vs. the same period a year ago. Year-over-year core PCE inflation, however, has yet to react (blue line). But with recent economic data looking relatively upbeat—including last week’s upward revision in third-quarter GDP–one can only wonder if inflation is poised to trend higher.

It’s getting easier to imagine a world with firmer pricing pressures. But first let’s see what happens with this week’s jobless claims update on Thursday. New filings for unemployment benefits have jumped sharply lately. For now, this warning is the outlier relative to most macro data. But if the dark trend in new claims rolls on, the case for assuming that inflation will perk up will look unconvincing, in part because we should expect the Fed to rethink its tapering program that started last week. One the other hand, if this Thursday’s claims report looks encouraging, maybe inflation is headed higher in 2014 after all.