Job Growth Is Up, Production Down

The most important indicators of our economic health are telling very different stories. On Wednesday, news reports made much of the fact that gross domestic product fell at an annual rate of 2.9 percent in the first quarter of this year, a decline largely attributable to bad weather. That brings growth over the past year to a disappointing 1.5 percent. Yet the labor market continues to deliver good news, and over the same period, the unemployment rate fell by more than a full percentage point.