That approach, which White House officials have foreshadowed for weeks, is rooted in statistics that are at best mixed for Mr. Obama. He is presiding over an economy that has improved sharply in the five years since 2009, when it was buckling under the weight of a severe recession, but decades-long shifts in technology and globalization have left more people out of work for extended periods than at any other time in the past 50 years.

Image President Obama tried to balance good and bad economic news in his address on Tuesday. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times

Like Mr. Obama, President Ronald Reagan also ended his fifth year with unemployment at 7 percent after a devastating recession. But Mr. Reagan was sunnier in public as the country’s financial fortunes turned around, and ran for re-election in 1984 with an advertising campaign that declared “It’s morning again in America” for a country weary of economic distress. Mr. Obama has chosen to be more restrained in his enthusiasm.

“There is a reality in politics, as in life, that you have to play the hand you are dealt,” said Geoff Garin, a veteran Democratic pollster. “The question comes down to whether you think Americans have a capacity for nuance. President Obama has always operated on the presumption that they do, and that is the approach he is taking now in talking about the economy.”

With congressional elections on the horizon and his legacy at stake, Mr. Obama does at times peddle economic good news like any other president, as he did at a news conference last month when he said, “I firmly believe that 2014 can be a breakthrough year for America.” He repeated that line on Tuesday.

But to make the case for his agenda and to convince skeptical Republicans in Congress, Mr. Obama is also emphasizing how the recovery has fallen short. In a speech in December that aides described as a preview of the president’s State of the Union address later this month, Mr. Obama spoke in depth about the economic problems he still confronts.

“The basic bargain at the heart of our economy has frayed,” Mr. Obama said.

The president’s language is to some degree the latest version of what critics call the muddled economic message the White House has been delivering for years. In 2009 and 2010, Mr. Obama and his top economic advisers regularly pointed to minor improvements in the economy even as they acknowledged the suffering that many felt. Now that the economic recovery is moving more quickly, the administration remains cautious about declaring victory.