“If you’re a new data scientist, or Ph.D. economist, yeah, it’s a great time to look for a job,” Lawrence Katz, a Harvard University economics professor who served as the Labor Department chief economist during the Clinton administration, said when asked if this is the best time to look for work. “If you’re a janitor, a construction worker in some places -- No.”

Katz noted that in the late 1960s and late 1990s, wage growth was booming for such everyday employees. And in the 1960s, jobs put workers on a path toward benefits and economic security in the longer run -- more of a rarity today, in a world where unions and pension plans are few and far between.

Michael Bordo, an economics professor at Rutgers University and an authority on monetary history, agrees with Katz on that timing. The best economic period judging by unemployment was the 1960s, he said. In terms of economic growth, it was the 1960s and the 1990s.

As for the Golden Age, “we’re not going to get that back,” Bordo said. While new technologies could help to boost growth higher, the postwar boom’s special conditions are impossible to replicate. It’s more realistic, he said, to shoot for growth that mirrors the 1980s and 1990s.

Northwestern’s Gordon is also doubtful that a return to the “greatest” economy is within reach.

Comparing Eras
“In terms of everyday life, a smartphone doesn’t compare with the liberation of women that was made possible by the invention of home appliances,” he said.

Therein lies the trouble with declaring that today’s economy is -- or isn’t -- the “greatest” ever. Economic progress depends on long-running, hard-to-change trends like labor force size and growth, so making comparisons across time is like judging pancakes against crepes. With different quantities of the key ingredients, results will vary.

In the U.S., where an aging population has been holding down the labor participation rate and birth rates have waned, demographics alone make the GDP figures seen in prior decades tough to match.

The White House economic team appears to be cognizant of America’s tempered prospects -- and optimistic within those more-limited parameters.

“Virtually every economist” said 3 percent growth couldn’t be achieved, and “we are now moving into 3 percent zone -- that is a huge achievement,” Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic adviser, told reporters Wednesday when challenged on the president’s assertion that the economy is the best ever. Progress on boosting growth “in my judgment, is only just beginning,” he said.