The U.S. Census Bureau released its 2017 report on income, poverty and health insurance this morning. The poverty rate dropped, and the median household income rose. Good news, right?

Not entirely. The improvements actually represent a slowdown of growth trends from prior years, suggesting that, at least for working people, the post-recession recovery process is flagging. And if that’s true, then it’s a grim sign, because many working people are in worse financial shape than they were before the 2008 financial crisis, or have just barely recouped their losses. And even before the crisis American workers had been experiencing wage stagnation, eroded labor protections, and rising living costs for decades. The improvements published in the Census report are far from signaling that the economy is functioning well for the majority of people.

The median household income may have risen a bit in 2017, but it’s still lower than it was before the economy collapsed. And while the poverty rate fell by 0.4 percentage points in 2017, that left 12.3 percent, or 39.7 million people, still below the poverty line. We can call it an improvement, but we’d be missing the forest for the trees.