The government reported Friday that employers added 242,000 workers in February, a hefty increase that highlighted the labor market's steady gains at a time when anxiety about the economy was registering on Wall Street and at campaign rallies around the country.
"We've got a real strong job market going," said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust. "It does suggest that fears about a U.S. recession have been greatly overdone."
Four years ago, at this point in the last presidential election cycle, the jobless rate was at 8.3 percent and the economic recovery was in a relatively early stage. Then, worries centered on rising gas prices, deep consumer debt and government layoffs.
Now, the recovery is in its seventh year, the unemployment rate has dropped sharply to 4.9 percent and the private sector has chalked up 72 months of uninterrupted job gains, the longest streak on record. Oil prices may still be causing ulcers, but this time it is producers who are feeling the pain, because the prices have plunged.
Wages fell by 0.1 percent in February, a disappointing showing after the 0.5 percent increase in January, resulting in a 2.2 percent bump in the yearly rise.
The Labor Department also revised its figures for December and January, adding 30,000 more jobs collectively for the two months.
Wall Street has been betting that the Federal Reserve would put off any interest rate increase at its next meeting later this month. But economists said the strong jobs report would at least give policymakers at the central bank pause. "This number will certainly spice up the Fed's discussion," Tannenbaum said.
Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at Standard & Poor's, was heartened. "We're back in the saddle again," she crowed. "It's stronger than last year's average." She noted that the dip in wages was a setback, but did follow a strong showing in January. "We expect wages to climb higher," she said.
Employment gains showed up in sectors across the board, including retail sales, food services and health care, while the mining sector continued to bleed jobs. The gains came despite heavy snowfall that hit the Northeast, which had caused several analysts to prepare for a weak showing. "If anything, that suggests the results were understated," Tannenbaum said, opening the way for even higher revisions in the coming months.
William Spriggs, chief economist at the AFL-CIO, did caution that some of the unexpected gains in construction might be because of snow-clearing rather than house-building.
Despite the improved economic picture, there is still plenty of distress and anger, emotions that have helped spur the success of the Republican presidential front-runner, Donald Trump, and rallied many Democrats behind the underdog Bernie Sanders' attacks on inequality and Wall Street cronyism.
Part of the reason is the unevenness of the recovery, with fortunes diverging depending on where you live, your education and skill level and what industry you work in.
"We are seeing job growth across a range of industries, but we're also seeing a polarization in the labor market," said Tara Sinclair, chief economist for the job site Indeed.
Robust demand for hospitality and service workers has been helping keep total job growth count up despite weaknesses in manufacturing, transportation and energy, sectors that also tend to be dominated by blue-collar white men, who have suffered the most from deep shifts in the U.S. economy.
The economy is also diverging geographically, a divide that can be seen in the five states that are holding their primaries on Saturday. While Nebraska's jobless rate in December (the most recent available) was 3 percent, among the lowest in the country, Louisiana's, at 5.8 percent, and Kentucky's, at 5.7 percent, were among the highest.
Many of Louisiana's woes, like those of other oil- and mineral-rich states — including Alaska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Wyoming and New Mexico — can be largely attributed to the vertiginous drop in oil prices. These states were among the handful that registered job losses in 2015 or ended the year with a higher unemployment rate than they began with.
A scattershot survey of businesses and experts across the country collected by the 12 Federal Reserve banks underscored the wide variation across different regions and sectors. The report, known as the Beige Book and released on Wednesday, noted that "wage growth varied considerably, from flat to strong." Economic activity declined in St. Louis, remained flat in New York and Dallas and grew moderately in Richmond, Virginia, and San Francisco.
Moreover, even as unemployment among those active in the job market has fallen, the overall share of Americans in the labor force has been dragging along at historically low levels. While a growing number of retiring baby boomers is partly responsible, the problem also continues to afflict people in their prime working years.
"That has been the shadow hanging over all the other labor force statistics," said Patrick O'Keefe, director of economic policy at CohnReznick, an accounting, tax and advisory firm. "Underutilization of a potentially significant share of our labor force is a significant explanation for why the overall recovery has been sluggish."
Friday's report is the first of three estimates of job creation by the Labor Department, and as more data comes in, the figure for February could be revised up or down.
A string of other economic reports this week were encouraging. Automobile sales were solid, manufacturing held steady and there were gains in personal income and spending, leading several Wall Street analysts to strike a more upbeat tone.
Gus Faucher, a senior economist at PNC Bank, was also buoyed by continuing signs of strength. "Between consumer spending and construction, that's solid enough to offset any drags from the downturn in mining and energy production," he said.
Spriggs, of the AFL-CIO, contrasted the palpable dissatisfaction of many voters to the record of unbroken job creation. "This is one of those times when the economic cycle has hit a weird political cycle," he said.