State of Business: Detroit's New Line-Up

As summer begins, the U.S. economy has pretty well scaled back to its pre-recession peaks of production. On the Federal Reserve Board's production index, industrial output for May hit 108% of the 1957 base—three points above April and six above the recession low in February. And Washington economists predict that in June the index will rise to within a point or two of the alltime high of 111% set in January of 1960.

The economy got its biggest lift in May from the auto industry, where production was up 9%. Not since 1929,...