Not bad for a much-maligned economy

Published April 9, 2007 at midnight

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Just when your mind may have been grappling with the disturbing news that Circuit City stores had fired 3,400 of their highest-paid hourly salespeople - not to trim the workforce, as you might expect, but to replace those let go with lower-paid workers - along comes the Labor Department with equally startling news, but of a positive bent.

In March, the U.S. economy added 180,000 jobs; the unemployment rate declined again, to 4.4 percent; and average hourly and weekly earnings advanced, with weekly income up 4.4 percent on an annual basis.

In other words, amid all of the economic anxiety fueled by globalization, immigration and the relentless rhetoric about a growing class divide in the United States, the actual performance of the American economy remains fairly remarkable.

We're not suggesting that the popular worries are baseless. Globalization involves winners and losers; immigration puts pressure on wages (at least on the lower end); and the rich have indeed been getting richer at a faster rate than the rest of us.

Even some of the popular resentments - such as over the steep trajectory of CEO pay -- are hardly without merit.

But after six years of fairly steady economic growth despite a costly war, Katrina, a housing slump and other body blows, fair-minded people should at least entertain the possibility that current policies must be getting something right.

The burden of proof, indeed, should be on those who want to raise taxes, reverse advances in free trade, and micromanage businesses with a slew of new regulations affecting compensation, benefits and employment conditions.

After all, what exactly is it about the March economic figures that they don't like?

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