If you are getting spooked by plunging stock prices, you may be trying to figure out where the economy is heading.

Here’s one new sign that better days are coming:

In the latest survey of business economists, most — 58 percent — say their companies plan to raise workers’ wages this winter. That’s the most upbeat wage outlook since mid-2014, according to the quarterly survey done by the National Association for Business Economics.

Combine those coming raises with Americans’ savings from cheap gasoline and lower home heating bills and you must have a formula for a brighter U.S. economy.

Or so you would think.

Unfortunately, Monday also brought another big drop on Wall Street, leaving stock prices on track for their worst January since 2009.

On Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 208 points, or 1.3 percent, to 15,885. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite each fell 1.6 percent.

Most analysts are tying the stock market’s swan dive to oil prices, which have been running at about $30 a barrel, roughly a quarter of what they were as recently as June 2014.

The huge decline in oil has led to energy stocks getting crushed, oil field workers being laid off and inflation estimates getting thrown out of windows. All of that has been troubling Wall Street.

And now there’s a hint of rising pessimism in the broader economy, as reflected in the business economists’ survey, released Monday. Just 47 percent of the economists reported rising sales at their companies during the fourth quarter of 2015, down from 51 percent who had seen improving sales in the October 2015 survey.

For the first time in three years, more than a quarter of those surveyed expect real gross domestic product to rise by only 2 percent or less in the coming year.

So yes, the survey found more gloom among a minority of economists. But most economists continue to point to the upside of cheap energy.

The share of NABE respondents who say their companies enjoyed cost declines bounced up to 28 percent this month, compared with 22 percent in October. That means those companies can better afford to give out raises and continue hiring.

Let’s boil it down. Here’s the optimists’ take: Workers are getting raises at a time of robust hiring and bargains at the gas station. Meanwhile, most companies are benefiting from lower costs, which will allow them to upgrade their workforces.

“If your input costs are going down, you can afford to pay up to either keep people or attract more talented ones,” said Jim Smith, chief economist at Parsec Financial in Asheville, N.C., and one of the economists on a NABE teleconference Monday.

And here’s the pessimists’ view:

More oil comes from U.S. producers. In the past, cheaper oil hit harder at producers in the Middle East and elsewhere. Now that the United States is such a huge producer of oil, lower prices hurt U.S. oil field workers and investments.

The stock market turmoil reflects “the fact that the United States is a net producer in oil now versus a net consumer,” James Stanley, currency analyst at DailyFX, said.

Another problem is that supercheap energy is making inflation so low that it’s throwing off predictions about what the Federal Reserve will be doing next. Last month, the Fed took steps to nudge up short-term interest rates to tamp down inflation.

But not much inflation is materializing, and interest rates on many securities are staying low. For example, on Monday, yields on 10-year Treasury notes fell three basis points to 2.02 percent. That’s adding to a sense of uncertainty at a time when China is experiencing slowing growth and currency turmoil.

Later this week, economists and investors may get a better sense of who’s placing smarter bets, the optimists or the pessimists. This week brings the government’s first estimate of fourth-quarter U.S. growth as well as scores of earnings reports from companies in the S&P. And the Fed’s policymakers start their two-day meeting on Tuesday.

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A chicken house in Seagrove, N.C. North Carolina is one of the country’s largest poultry producers. As farms move closer to residential areas, neighbors are complaining that the waste generated is a potential health hazard. Kelly Bennett/MCT via Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Kelly Bennett/MCT via Getty Images

North Carolina is one of the country’s largest poultry producers — and getting bigger. Large-scale chicken farms are spreading across the state. Government regulations have allowed these farms to get much closer to where people live. That’s not just a nuisance. Neighbors say it’s also a potential health hazard.

Craig Watts is an industrial chicken farmer in Fairmont, N.C. He contracts with Perdue and has raised birds for more than 20 years. Still, he says sometimes it’s a struggle to meet the demands of the industry.

“They don’t have to spend 24/7 with that chicken and have to deal with its waste. I deal with it and that kind of stuff. It’s a good situation for them,” Watts says.

His birds produce 700 tons of poultry waste each year, and he’s responsible for it. It’s spread in nearby fields and sold to farmers for fertilizer. Watts’ operation is one of thousands of confined animal feeding operations in the state.

These large-scale chicken farms are popping up near residential areas in western North Carolina, especially in Surry County. That worries residents Terry and Mary Marshall. “Your throat starts to hurt — you know you are in it,” Terry says. “It smells like a lot of ammonia, and sometimes, just dead rotting meat.”

Surry County residents from left, Terry Marshall, Dr. Katherine Kellam, Donna Bryant, Mary Marshall and Jesse Hardy lend support to each other during a meeting at Bryant’s home in the Shoals community. Mary Marshall says the odor and pollution from nearby chicken farms can make it hard to breathe. Keri Brown/WFDD hide caption

toggle caption Keri Brown/WFDD

The waste is a combination of manure, feed and carcasses — which can cause harmful gas emissions. Mary says there are dust particles in the air and it can be hard to breathe. “We had some friends over to the house,” she says, “several people one night, and it was so bad, they had flashlights out in the front yard and you could see” the particles.

Environmental groups are concerned, too. Will Scott with the Yadkin Riverkeeper says chicken farms aren’t under the same scrutiny as other industries. These dry-litter poultry operations are exempt from state odor ordinances, and federal regulators don’t monitor their air emissions.

“I think what you are seeing here is the influence of a very powerful industry over state legislatures and over the federal government,” Scott says. “To the point where even the Environmental Protection Agency has not stepped up to regulate these facilities, despite the fact that we know they are polluting waterways across the country.”

The Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t see it that way. Allison Wiedeman of the EPA’s Water Permits Division says water quality regulations have been in place for years, and states can enforce additional requirements on poultry producers.

“We see that it’s working,” she says. “We know that these facilities have to have permits if they discharge, and so all I can tell you right now is that the process is working.”

Just how much waste is produced is unknown. The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality says it doesn’t have a system to track these dry litter systems.

Bob Ford with the North Carolina Poultry Federation says more regulation would hurt the industry, which is worth $34 billion to the state economy. He adds odor and other issues are the farmer’s responsibility, but he acknowledges companies could be more involved. “There’s always room for improvement on anything what we do out here,” Ford says. “Maybe we can try to use more buffer zones or tree planting to reduce the impact.”

Tyson and Perdue, two major companies that contract with independent farmers, both declined interviews for this story. They did release statements that said their farmers are required to follow the law. But the laws don’t offer any protections for Terry and Mary Marshall.

Mary says it’s already too late for her neighborhood. “I have to hold myself together all of the time,” she says. “I knew it was going to be bad, but I had no idea it was going to be this bad.”

Mary is lobbying state lawmakers and says she wants future chicken farms away from residential areas, and something to control the odor and pollution, which she says will get worse in the hot North Carolina summers.

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Keri Brown reports for member station WFDD in Winston-Salem, N.C.

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A divorced New York businessman billionaire with a mixed political history and knack for controversy and grabbing the spotlight might run for president. Another one.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is again weighing a possible independent bid for the White House after seeing an opening in a chaotic and unpredictable 2016 race.

The Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent is actively exploring a run, hiring consultants and commissioning a poll last month aimed at seeing whether there is an appetite for a third party candidate, a source familiar with Bloomberg’s plans told NPR.

Bloomberg plans to survey the race after next month’s New Hampshire primary and is willing to spend up to $1 billion of his own money on such an effort. He has proved he’s willing to spend money to win elections. He’s spent more than $300 million between his three mayoral runs and his post-mayoral political projects. The $250 million he spent on his mayor races is the most anyone’s ever spent on their own elections in U.S. history.

He can afford it — Bloomberg is the 14th-richest man in America and estimated to be worth some $36 billion, according to Forbes’ 2015 list of billionaires. To put that in context, Donald Trump claims to be worth almost $10 billion. (His wealth has been estimated at lower than that, somewhere between $2 billion and $5 billion, according to various counts.)

Because of deadlines to get on a general-election ballot, he will make a decision one way or another by March, sources close to the former New York mayor told NPR and WNYC.

This isn’t the first time the former mayor and media mogul has flirted with a presidential bid, but the unique dynamics of the 2016 race make it more likely than ever he could actually pull the trigger this time.

According to the New York Times, which first reported Bloomberg’s interest, he is more likely to run if Trump or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz wins the GOP nomination and if Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders topples former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Democratic race.

“If Hillary wins the nomination, Hillary is mainstream enough that Mike would have no chance, and Mike’s not going to go on a suicide mission,” former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Clinton ally and friend to Bloomberg, told the Times.

The problem that timeline presents for Bloomberg is that neither primary contest is likely to be decided in March.

The 73 year-old Bloomberg has remained active in politics since leaving office in 2013, most notably advocating for stricter gun-control measures across the country through his “Everytown for Gun Safety” group, which spent nearly $400,000 on elections in 2014 with mixed results.

Even though Bloomberg first won office in 2001 as a Republican, he holds some very liberal positions. He’s outspoken on climate change, is pro-abortion rights and supports same-sex marriage, and his crackdown on trans-fats and other healthy eating requirements in New York City drew backlash from many conservatives.

But his cozy relationship with Wall Street and anti-public-sector union efforts in New York City could similarly alienate liberals who might agree with him on social policy.

There’s no telling how exactly Bloomberg could affect a general election featuring Trump and Sanders, but the race would feature two New York billionaires against an avowed socialist whose core message has been anti-Wall Street and the wealthy class.

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