There is one prism through which we should analyze the April jobs numbers released Friday and each of the remaining reports in 2017: How close to full employment are we, really?

That is the apparently simple yet oh-so-complex question that matters most for both policy makers at the Federal Reserve and the Trump administration, and for ordinary Americans who want to see bigger paychecks and rising standards of living. In an economy at full employment, pretty much anyone who wants a job can get one, companies have incentive to offer pay raises, and firms are more inclined to offer training, flexible work arrangements and other concessions that benefit their workers.

The good news from the April numbers is that we’re quite clearly getting there, if not yet fully arrived.

The headline numbers for April are terrific. The economy added 211,000 jobs in April, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.4 percent. That is not just the lowest jobless rate in a decade; it also matches the lowest level reached during the mid-2000s expansion. The last time it was lower was May 2001, 16 full years ago.