Surely you've heard the jokes about economic forecasters. We're the people who have predicted five out of the last three recessions. We wonder if things that work in practice will work in theory. And we present our forecasts out to two decimal points just to prove we have a sense of humor.

The bottom line is that forecasting is fraught with error. We admit that, but we continue to forecast. And people continue to use forecasts, simply because there's really no alternative.

But when it comes to assessing errors, those of us who stick our necks out to say where the economy will be in twelve months might just as well ask: compared to what? Our prediction of the economy in the year ahead, when the facts eventually become available, will surely be found to be flawed in some respect. But the judgments of those who may criticize us, concerning the way the economy is right now, are themselves far from perfect.

There's an avalanche of information on the economy that comes out every day. Out of necessity, we rely on others to sift through it and communicate each report's basic message. But sometimes that message gets ahead of the facts. And that mistake can make a forecaster look good by comparison.

Last November we looked into our crystal balls at Ball State and said that 2003 would be another year of respectable growth for the U.S. economy. That's right, I said another year. Dour headlines aside, the most comprehensive statistics on economic activity put overall growth at 2.4 percent in 2002. The hiccup in the year's final three months, when growth slipped to a 0.7 percent annul rate, brought that down a notch, to be sure. But coming off of a super-charged third quarter that sawconsumer spending on durables surge by 22.8 percent, a fall-back was widely anticipated.

From the furrowed brows of politicians and the business media, you might think that the U.S. economy fell off a cliff last year. But if you're reading the economy from the shrugs and gestures of those who talk about it, you might be in for a surprise.

As forecasters, we see an economy that is still sticking to the script. And we got some evidence of that in the January report on employment and unemployment for the national economy. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, businesses increased their payrolls by 143,000 jobs during the first month of the new year. A much smaller decline in manufacturing payrolls and a rebound in retail trade employment were the big contributors to the bottom line.

That good news must be tempered by the fact that job cuts in the preceding month more than wiped out those gains. But if we are not yet expanding, neither are we losing ground. That fact was underscored by the decline in the widely-watched unemployment rate, down 0.3 percentage points to 5.7 percent in January. That's at or below the level we've stayed at since the beginning of last year.

Should we cling to our favorite forecast like a security blanket, to protect us from the harsh reports on the economy all around us? That's probably a bit far fetched. But before you let someone else's gloomy message seep into your own outlook, just say these four words: show me the numbers.