Hillary Clinton catches a break on the improving economy | McClatchy Washington Bureau

The strength of the U.S. economy, just 11 days from the election, has muted Republican Donald Trump’s campaign message about the beleaguered United States.

Friday’s Commerce Department report showed the economy expanding at an annual rate of 2.9 percent from July through September, the fastest pace in two years.

“It’s clear we’ve made real progress coming back from the crisis,” Clinton said.

Trump, trailing in the polls on Friday, looked past the numbers. “The single most important issue facing the American people is an economy that has failed to deliver jobs, incomes and opportunity,” he said.

The economy has expanded in fits and starts since the end of the Great Recession in June 2009. Growth has been uneven but constant, and in the past several months the labor market – the most crucial of bellwethers – is hitting highs not seen in a decade or more.

“The economy is strong enough that Trump can’t use it politically, and not strong enough for Secretary Clinton to bask in it,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for forecaster Moody’s Analytics. “But it looks like she will inherit, if elected, a solid economy that continues to improve.”

Labor Department data shows job openings have grown. First-time claims for unemployment have declined to levels seen during strong expansion.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows there were 5.44 million job openings in August, the last month for which there was complete data available, compared with almost 5.31 million openings the same month of 2015. It suggests employers are struggling to find qualified workers.

U.S. retailers began hiring for the holiday season in August, a month earlier than usual, out of concern they might not be able to hire enough workers, according to Jed Kolko, chief economist for the job-search website Indeed.com.

“Consumers have seen steady job and income gains throughout the year, resulting in continued confidence and the greater use of credit, which bodes well for more spending throughout the holiday season,” Jack Kleinhenz, chief economist for the retailers’ group, said in early October during his holiday forecast.

Retailer Target announced in mid-September it would hire another 70,000 seasonal workers for the holidays and was increasing hiring in distribution facilities.

“To make sure we have plenty of hands on deck, we’re planning to add the 7,500 seasonal positions in those facilities – about 1,000 more than Target hired last holiday,” said Janna Potts, the chief stores officer.

Absent an unexpected shock, the economy advantages Clinton.

“If you ask the average consumer, who is also the average voter, it’s always about my job, my paycheck, my potential raise, my potential promotion,” said Ken Goldstein, an economist with the New York-based Conference Board, which publishes a closely followed monthly reading on consumer confidence. “It always comes down to that.”

The challenge for the Trump campaign is this: Despite uneven economic growth, in most of the country today opportunity and employment are growing. For example, the year-over-year growth in the labor force was just under 2 percent in the latest reading for October.

“That approaches the highs we saw in the last expansion,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist for Bank of the West in San Francisco and an expert on the California economy, by itself one of the world’s largest.

In the most recent reading of state-level job data, California saw its unemployment rate fall half a percentage point to 5.5 percent over the past year ending in September. That’s still half a percentage point higher than the national jobless rate of 5 percent, but the details are more instructive.

“Certainly in the coastal regions unemployment numbers are considerably below the national average and have been for some time,” said Anderson, who added that his own research points to upward pressure on wages across many of the Golden State’s largest cities. “It’s a reflection of this tightening labor market.”

Trump’s message of a country in need of restoration resonates most clearly where jobs and income are slumping. His poll numbers show that he fares well in states whose economies depend on energy or agriculture.

Slumping commodity prices have stalled growth in energy-rich states such as Louisiana, Wyoming and Oklahoma and farm states such as Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri. Wyoming and Oklahoma each saw a full percentage point rise in unemployment over the 12 months that ended in September.

Also in the Trump camp is West Virginia, a state suffering greatly from the switch from coal to cleaner natural gas.

Whoever wins November’s election is likely to oversee an economy that will continue to grow but at rates below historical averages. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office anticipates a growth rate of about 1.8 percent through 2026. That’s below the 2.1 percent average annual growth that’s followed the Great Recession. Productivity growth has been weak and technology has allowed employers to become more efficient with fewer workers.

The current expansion has seen the most sluggish growth since World War II, influenced in part by slowing growth in China and globally, and fears of a European Union breakup. Fewer people are getting married and starting families, and while the historically low mortgage rates should encourage home-buying, that purchase remains out of reach for many working Americans.