Today’s numbers also give us an opportunity to compare how the economy is treating Americans today versus in December 2007, when the recession began. Unemployment peaked at 10.0 percent during the recession, and at 4.7 percent it is now below where it was before the recession began (5.0 percent). Still, there are many signs that the economy has yet to fully recover. The underemployment rate—which adds in workers who are part-time for economic reasons and those marginally attached—still hasn’t reached its pre-recession level. That leaves a lot of workers sitting on the sidelines and underutilized. Two other important indicators—prime-age employment-to-population ratio and nominal wage growth—are still far lower than would be expected in a stronger economy. Year over year nominal hourly wages grew at 2.9 percent in December, the fastest rate of growth so far in the recovery. While the pace of wage growth has picked up this year as the economy strengthens, it is still below levels consistent with the Fed’s target inflation rate and trend productivity growth.

All told, it’s clear that the next president is inheriting an economy much stronger than it was at the start of the previous administration—but there is still more work to do. Not only would cuts to social safety net programs hurt the people who rely on them to make ends meet to put a roof over their heads, to put food on the table, and get the health care they need, we’ve also seen austerity at all levels of government put a drag on the economy. Working families need good jobs, decent wages, and reliable benefits—which means we need policymakers to make it a priority to return the country to full employment. To improve living standards to the vast majority Americans, policymakers need to strengthen the safety net, bolster labor standards, forgo austerity, and ensure that interest rates stay low so that the growing economy reaches all.

That said, we are still far from full employment. At 77.8 percent, the prime-age employment-to-population ratio is still far below its last peak, and indeed is still below the lowest trough of the last two full business cycles. And, at 2.6 percent, year-over-year nominal wage growth remains below levels consistent with Fed targets for inflation and trend productivity growth. The unemployment rate rose to 4.9 percent, which is consistent with other measures of labor market slack.

Overall, today’s report is a good sign but it is clear that there’s still a fair amount of weakness to account for.

Wage growth, meanwhile, was 2.3 percent year-over-year. Wage growth continues to be below target levels, a sign that there continues to be substantial slack in the labor market. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen indicated earlier this week that the Fed would be “patient” when it comes to raising rates. Today’s data confirm that said patience is warranted.

This lackluster wage growth is a clear indicator that there’s still considerable slack in the labor market. With so many Americans looking for work—and millions more who would be looking for work if job opportunities were stronger—employers simply don’t have to offer wage increases to get and keep the workers they need. Until hiring rates and net job creation pick up and wage growth reaches and stays above the 3.5 percent rate consistent with the Federal Reserve Board’s inflation target of 2 percent and 1.5 percent productivity growth assumption, it’s clear that Fed policymakers should abandon notions of slowing economic growth. The economy may be growing, but not enough for workers to feel the effects in their paychecks.

One notable downside is that wages grew not at all in the last month. While one shouldn’t read too much into one month, wage growth has been hovering around a sluggish 2 percent over the last year. This is a clear indication that the Federal Reserve should hold off on any efforts to slow the economy down.

While it’s yet to be seen whether this slower job growth is an anomaly or a new trend, these numbers should give us pause. Adding in this month’s disappointing numbers, job growth this year is still above last year’s average at this time. Job growth has averaged 215,000 jobs a month thus far in 2014, compared to 197,000 in the first eight months of 2013. We need to be consistently adding jobs at a much faster rate to return to the labor market conditions before the recession began—arguably a labor market that still had considerable slack.

The slack in the today’s labor market is best indicated by lackluster wage growth. Private sector nominal average hourly earnings grew 2.1 percent annually in August—consistent with what we’ve seen this year so far. Employers just don’t have to offer big wage increases to get and keep the workers they need, when hiring rates and net job creation remain far slower than what’s needed to for a healthy labor market.

July’s 209,000 jobs is solid, but is a decline from the strong second quarter, when 277,000 jobs were added each month on average. At July’s pace, it would take nearly four more years to get back to pre-recession labor market conditions.

In short, today’s jobs report was solid but not stellar—the slowdown in job growth from the second quarter dampens hopes that we’ve really kicked it into a higher gear.

All-in-all, this is a strong report. But it’s important to keep in mind that we still face a huge hole in the labor market, and even if we saw June’s rate of job growth every month from here on out, we still wouldn’t get back to health in the labor market for another two and a half years.