The economy is improving this month, according to the Consumer Reports Index for July. Job creation increased to 51.1, its highest level since April 2009. The report showed that 7.8 percent of Americans started a new job versus 5.7 percent who lost their job.

Consumer spending also increased this month, and the Consumer Reports Trouble Tracker Index, which measures the financial difficulties faced by consumers in the past 30 days, declined from 63.5 last month to 57.6 this month. The most significant improvement was in the proportion of Americans that missed a mortgage payment, which was down to 2.4 percent from 3.9 percent the prior month.

For a more complete analysis of the report, see the Consumer Reports Blog at http://blogs.consumerreports.org/money/cr-index/