As of Friday evening, President Trump had made no comment on Twitter about the mediocre August numbers, but four weeks ago he was so quick to promote July’s "excellent jobs numbers” that he violated a rule that specifies public officials should wait an hour after they’re released to comment.

There are two things wrong with this “presidential scorecard” framework for thinking about economic data. First, the overall trajectory of the economy looks very much the way it did this time a year ago; if you assume some amount of statistical noise, in broad brush strokes the 2017 economy looks pretty much identical to the 2016 economy. Second, this early in an administration, things the president does have had little impact on job growth, G.D.P. or unemployment.

The numbers are straightforward. Job growth has averaged 170,000 positions a month since February, the first full month of the Trump administration. That is below the 208,000 average of the last six months of 2016, but the slower pace of job creation shouldn’t be surprising. With the economy closer to full employment now — the unemployment rate is at 4.4 percent instead of the 4.9 percent in the middle of last year — employers looking to add jobs are working against a harder constraint on the number of workers.

Meanwhile, most other indicators suggest “steady as she goes.” The wage growth number, 2.5 percent over the last year, is right at the level at which it has bounced around for years. There was a bit of a stir, earlier in the week, when second-quarter G.D.P. growth hit 3 percent. But there have been individual quarters like that now and again since this expansion. The 2.1 percent average growth rate in the first half of the year reflects the same basic trend for the last eight years.