Some of the talk about the state of the economy lately has grown downright giddy.
The economy is certainly growing, as it has been since last summer. And that growth appears more durable than it did just a few months ago, making a dip back into recession appear highly unlikely.
But the buoyant talk has gotten far ahead of the reality on the ground of the American economy.
That great March job number, for example, received a short-term boost from temporary Census Bureau hiring and the rebound from February snowstorms, so the underlying employment growth was somewhere around 50,000 jobs -- not the 162,000 that made headlines, and far below the 130,000 or so jobs needed to keep up with population growth. The number of people filing new claims for jobless benefits each week has remained stubbornly around 450,000, well above the levels expected in a hiring boom.
And while the stock market is up a lot, it has rebounded from generational lows. Much of the gains of the past year reflected the investors' conclusion that the economy wasn't going to collapse, not a harbinger of boom times ahead.
The U.S. economy will grow 3.1 percent this year, according to the consensus of forecasters surveyed by the Blue Chip Economic Indicators. That is far better than the steep declines of a year ago, but basically close to the long-term growth trend for the U.S. economy.