This is third month in a row that the economy has added at least 200,000 jobs. It's not ideal: At this rate, it will be many years before we regain all of the jobs that this recession destroyed. Far too many people are still struggling -- and, from the looks of things, many of them are going to keep struggling for some time. But the steady rise in employment, coupled with a small increase in wages and other underlying indicators, suggests a true recovery is under way.

But don't take it from me. Here, via e-mail, is Gary Burtless, the labor economist from Brookings:

The latest numbers look like a continuation of the strong job gains we’ve seen since late last summer. For the third month in a row the employer survey shows payroll increases exceeding 200,000. The household survey indicates an even more impressive performance. The number of respondents in that survey who say they hold a job increased 428,000 in February. Making an adjustment for the new population weights in January, employment gains in the household survey have averaged 388,000 a month since October. We need between 90,000 and 100,000 additional jobs every month to keep up with the growth in the working-age population. Job gains since last summer have comfortably exceeded that threshold. The unemployment rate was unchanged in February, not because employment progress slowed, but because working-age Americans were streaming back into the workforce. Almost a half million adults entered the labor force last month, a number that somewhat exceeded the impressive gains in employment. It’s hard to see any weakening of recent positive trends in the February jobs report. The trend is very much in the right direction, but we have a long way to go to get back to full employment.

Politically, this is obviously good news for the president and his party. The White House is too smart to take a victory lap: The possibility of slower growth later in the year, not to mention disruptive events in the Middle East or elsewhere, means future employment reports might not look so good.

But numbers like these put Obama in an awfully strong position to win reelection. And they should. Among other things, manufacturing jobs are on the rise again, many of them from the auto industry that Obama saved. The health care sector is still adding jobs, too: Apparently the industry knows something that Republicans don't about the "jobs-killing" Affordable Care Act.