There are a lot of good things to say, and few bad things to say, about the November employment numbers that were published Friday morning.

Employers added 266,000 jobs, a blockbuster number even after accounting for the one-time boost of about 41,000 striking General Motors workers who returned to the job. Revisions to previous months’ job counts were positive. The unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent, matching its lowest level since 1969.

Other numbers were less evocative of a boom time. The share of the adult population in the labor force ticked down, and average hourly earnings continued growing at only a moderate pace, up 3.1 percent over the last year — but it feels churlish to complain when the big-picture numbers are so good.

Still, there is a bigger lesson contained in the data, one that is important beyond any one month’s tally of the job numbers: that the American economy is capable of cranking at a higher level than conventional wisdom held as recently as a few years ago. As the economy continues to grow well above what once seemed like its potential, without inflation or other clear signs of overheating, it’s clearer that the old view of its potential was an extremely costly mistake.