Measuring the health of the American economy

Jim Cramer (among others) says the economy is recovering.

In order to sort out the propaganda from the information, what are the
most objective metrics for determining the health of something as
complex as the American economy?

Please also explain why the chosen metrics are better than others.

The amount of time it takes the average American to secure full ownership
of a suitable retirement abode is the best measure of the health of the
economy. That one metric encapsulates the degree to which economic
development is outpacing population growth and economic rent.

It tells
us to what extent Malthus was wrong. All other measures are too
particular and subject to fraud.

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Food Stamps Now Only Source of Income for 6 Million Americans

In other economic news, the New York Times reports about six million
Americans receiving food stamps report they have no other income.
About one in fifty Americans now lives in a household with a reported
income that consists of nothing but a food stamp card.
Malthus's essay was also constructed as a specific response to
writings of William Godwin and the Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794).

Malthus was sceptical of future improvement, considering that
throughout history a segment of every human population seemed
relegated to poverty. Malthus's explanation for this phenomenon was
that population growth generally preceded expansion of the
population's resources, in particular the primary resource of food:

"...in all societies, even those that are most vicious, the tendency
to a virtuous attachment is so strong that there is a constant effort
towards an increase of population. This constant effort as constantly
tends to subject the lower classes of the society to distress and to
prevent any great permanent amelioration of their condition.
n 1798, Thomas Malthus wrote an Essay on the Principle of Population
partly in response to Condorcet's views on the "perfectibility of
society".
Social progress is defined as a progress of society, which makes the
society better in the general view of those who attempt to cause it.
The concept of social progress was introduced in the early, 19th
century social theories, especially those of social evolutionists like
August Comte and Herbert Spencer. It was present in the
Enlightenment's philosophies of history.