DED is right, and has consistently said the DJ stock market number does NOT equate to the US economy...
but the media and many analysts seem to use it as a barometer/thermometer to measure the health of our economy...prolly because it's something familiar that people talk about when discussing business/finance and use when seeing if their investments are OK...in my high school social studies class, the stock market was used as a measurement of the economy and one of our projects then was to pick a company and follow it in the DJI for a few weeks...
it has also become a political measuring stick, depending on who's in office and how the numbers look...Obama got no credit from con media as the DJ steadily increased on his watch...then Trump got credit from them for all-time highs and continuing the upwards trend...
but unemployment is at an all-time low, and the MSM gave Obama credit for reductions in that rate, but have been less effusive in giving Trump credit for his reductions...
like a sports coach, he gets too much credit for success, and too much blame when things go sour...