The Journal of Business Market Fact Book goes live today, and the 90-plus charts and graphs suggest overall economic improvement. Some data suggest slower growth than one would want to see, and some facets remain stubbornly sluggish, but on the whole, things have been getting better this past year or two—or longer. 

One of my prevailing thoughts in looking at the data, however, is just how far back in the rearview mirror the Great Recession is becoming. 

Its effects barely appear on some graphs. In some of the data we collect that goes back five years, it won’t be represented in a year in some cases and two years in others. 

This comes as somewhat of a surprise to me, and it might be for others who slogged through those long, dark months in 2008 and 2009 and 2010—some felt it a little earlier, some later—when many lost jobs, had companies that shuttered, took pay cuts, and wondered if things would ever return to normal. 

Those experiences and lessons remain fresh in my mind, as they may in the minds of others as well, so much so that it’s hard to believe the worst of it was four and five years ago. 

For some time, we longed for a return to prerecession levels. Now, we’re starting to see numbers that are the best in years. Not as good as they were in the last of those boom years of the previous decade, but better than they’d been since then. 

The number of commercial building permits issued last year in Spokane County and the cities of Spokane and Spokane Valley hit its highest level since 2008. The average annual unemployment dipped to its lowest point since the same year. Taxable retail sales in Spokane County are the highest they’ve been since the mid-2000s. 

When reporting these facts, we typically have couched them by noting that they still are nowhere near the peaks during the housing and commercial construction boom of the past decade. 

Those comparative years, however, are getting to be eight, nine, and 10 years ago.In other words, one could make the argument that while the numbers of the boom are noteworthy and will provide good historical context, they no longer are as relevant in gauging progress in the current economy. 

Put yet another way, maybe it’s time to stop grading the local economy based on a curve that includes an 8- to 10-year-old heyday. 

For many of us, the Great Recession served up hard lessons that will remain at the forefront of our minds for years to come, just as the recession of the early 1980s formed the professional perspective of many and the Great Depression colored the Greatest Generation. Many who lived through those would argue the Great Recession wasn’t nearly as bad as those earlier, historic downturns, by the way. And some of the arguments to that effect are compelling.

Regardless, the experiences remain with us and stand to serve us well. 

But now, it’s time to evaluate the economy on the progress of the present and leave recessionary thinking behind us.