American businesses, on the other hand, have rarely had it so good. Rising demand from overseas and a weaker dollar have boosted corporate earnings across the board, so much so that four in five companies beat analysts’ earnings expectations in the second quarter—the highest share in more than a decade, Bloomberg reports. The stock market is at or near record highs, and America’s firms are sitting on trillions of dollars of cash that would help tide them over in the event of any downturn and concomitant fall in sales and profits. That said, there is no sign that businesses would use that cash to preserve jobs and help average workers. Indeed, companies would likely do what they did last time around, using a downturn as an opportunity to fire workers, pour resources into technologies that reduce the need for workers, and “upskill” their labor forces, meaning the less-educated workers who have recovered least from the last recession would again be hardest hit. The economy has had three jobless recoveries following the last three recessions, and the next recession would likely prompt a fourth.

Where things get really worrisome is the potential and likely response of the government. When it comes to monetary policy, there is far less space for the Federal Reserve to maneuver than last time around. Interest rates remain near scratch. The Federal Reserve already has trillions of dollars of assets on its books, bought as part of its policy of “quantitative easing” to depress the value of the dollar and spur investors to make riskier bets. There is still a lot that the Fed could do during a downturn, including buying up more assets. “I believe that monetary policy will, under most conditions, be able to respond effectively,” Janet Yellen, the current Fed chair, said last year. But it might not be able to respond with the force it did in the Great Recession.

As the Fed has reminded Congress repeatedly, monetary policy (basically, what the Fed does) works better when paired with fiscal policy (what Congress does). And the fiscal policy outlook is worrisome as well. Congress too has less room than it did during the Great Recession, with the country’s debt burden as a share of the overall economic output rising from 63 percent to 104 percent. That need not necessarily constrain the government’s ability to spend at a deficit—something that would help pull the economy out of any downward spiral—given how low interest rates are and how strong investors’ appetite for American debt remains. But fiscal hawks in Washington choked off debt-financed spending just months after the last recession ended, and would be likely to attempt to do the same again. Moreover, Republicans would likely push for most of a stimulus to come from deregulation and tax cuts, though research from the last recession clearly shows that spending, particularly on lower-income families, was far more effective, dollar per dollar. The broader fractiousness in American politics seems salient, as well. A Congress that cannot agree on much of anything seems unlikely to agree on a stimulus package aimed at helping America’s most vulnerable, quickly and effectively.