At 8:30 a.m. Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly employment report, as it does at the start of every month. As usual, the announcement was widely covered in the financial and mainstream media—a convenient hook for commentary about the state of the economy, the arc of the recovery and the future of the U.S.

The unemployment rate was a central factor in the 2012 presidential election, with President Barack Obama seemingly defying a powerful historical trend and winning re-election while the rate...