Good Job(s), So Far

It may be too early to claim that, after just seven weeks as president, Donald Trump has already made the economy great again. But Friday’s jobs numbers — along with other indicators — are certainly grounds for optimism.

The Labor Department said non-farm payroll employment grew by 235,000 in February. That’s a larger gain than expected — and more than twice the average monthly jobs growth under President Barack Obama.

Construction jobs, in particular, shot up by 58,000 — the biggest jump in almost 10 years. And that came on top of a January surge of 40,000 new construction jobs.

Overall unemployment, meanwhile, held steady at a reasonable 4.7 percent. And notably, labor-force participation among a key age group, 25- to 54-year-olds, ticked up a point — to 81.7 percent in February, from 80.6 percent in September 2015, a low not seen since 1984.

That may mean working-age folks who gave up looking for a job under Obama may now be starting to jump back into the game.

And all this is taking place as the stock market has hit record highs: The Dow closed Friday up more than 13 percent since Trump won the November election.

There’s more. Consumer confidence is at a 15-year high. And the Federal Reserve is apparently upbeat, too: It’s widely expected to raise interest rates this month.

Trump’s critics pooh-pooh all the good news. They note — rightly — that February was unusually warm and that job growth actually began under Obama. And, again, it’s a bit early to give Trump too much credit here.

Yet it’s also hard to deny that Trump’s approach — deregulation that’s already under way, the promise of tax cuts coming reasonably soon, the move to replace ObamaCare and his heavy focus on the economy generally — is striking a sweet note with both businesses and consumers.

Heck, if the numbers keep improving, at some point even Trump’s critics will have to give him some points.