Employers added 255,000 jobs last month while wages for private-sector workers matched their strongest annual pace of growth in seven years. More Americans joined the labor force, keeping the jobless rate steady at 4.9%.

That’s part of the best two months of hiring all year.  This is all good news, right?

Not so much.

The increase in the labor force participation rate was only a tenth of a point to 62.8%, still the lowest rate in 40-ish years—two generations.

Over the course of the year, GDP rose by all of 1%–another historically low rate, one that’s typical of our economic performance these last eight years of Democrat economic policies by abnormally low for GDP growth rates coming out of recessions over the last 70-ish years.

Businesses continue to cut their own investment, now for the third straight quarter.  That’s future growth, future employment, and future productivity growth—and future competitiveness—that won’t occur.

Don’t be fooled, either, by the week’s and the recent months’ rise in the stock market.  The stock market and our underlying economy are tied together, but the ties are very loose: either the market will fall back to the tepid level of our economy, or the economy will perk up, finally.  But neither can be expected to occur any time soon or with any accuracy in timing prediction.