OLD-LINE POPULISTS and left-leaning politicians are fond of setting "Main Street," where the votes are, against "Wall Street," where the money is. The latter, inhabited by fat cats, price gougers, insider traders, and assorted corporate felons, enriches itself by overcharging the doughty denizens of Main Street for all manner of goods and services, and inducing them to buy shares when they should be selling, and to sell shares when they would do better to be buyers.

That story works less well in America than it once did, witness John Kerry's attempt to portray himself as pro-business now that the Democratic primaries, dominated by voters from the party's left, are behind him. Styling himself "an entrepreneurial Democrat," Kerry told the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, "I refuse to lead a party that loves jobs but hates the people that create them."

No surprise: Americans refuse to become rabidly anti-business despite corporate scandals that include the collapse of Enron and the subsequent jailing of some of its top executives, the conviction of Martha Stewart for lying to government investigators about her stock trades, and the highly publicized trial and conviction of Credit Suisse First Boston's hot-shot trader, Frank Quattrone. The non-partisan Pew Research Center reports that recent corporate scandals have had "a minimal impact on public opinion."

But the Main Street vs. Wall Street dichotomy won't die. It has taken on a new, more sophisticated form that goes something like this:

From the point of view of Main Street, the recent economic news couldn't be better. The job market is recovering at a rapid rate, with 625,000 new jobs added in the past two months, and the unemployment rate down to 5.6 percent. If that rate of job growth is sustained, the unemployment rate will drop below 5 percent by the second quarter of 2005. The National Association of Colleges and Employers reports that employers plan to hire 11.2 percent more college graduates from this year's crop than they did last year.

Equally important, the new jobs are not primarily of the hamburger-flipper, minimum-wage sort. Two-thirds of the 288,000 new jobs created in April were in industries paying above-average wages--that is, wages higher than $17 per hour. And the future looks bright: Cisco Systems, the networking equipment supplier, plans to add 1,000 employees this year--after 4 years of adding to the nation's unemployment rolls--and other high-wage companies report business spending to be on the upswing.

Main Streeters are not only finding it easier to get decent jobs, but they are watching the value of their homes soar. They may be unhappy with the rising price of gasoline, but they show no signs of curtailing summer driving plans. The 24-hour business channels may be saying that the economy is cooling, but consumer confidence remains high. The Homeland Security office may be warning of a major terror attack this summer, but Americans are booking their vacation flights in such numbers that few seats remain available to the more popular destinations. And the news from Iraq may be disturbing, but Americans took to the roads this past holiday weekend, fired up their barbecues, and downed their first gins-and-tonics of the season. In sum, Main Street, buoyed especially by the jobs news, seems rather happy.