WASHINGTON -- Nearing Election Day, the economy offers mixed signals to voters.

A flurry of positive data on jobs, growth and consumer confidence suggest that the economy is slowly, steadily improving. Yet few economists think that the sluggish upward movement will improve much next year, regardless of who wins the presidential election.

The slow crawl back from the Great Recession has made it difficult for President Barack Obama to seek re-election. “It could have been worse” is hardly the sexiest of campaign slogans. It’s left fertile ground for Republican challenger Mitt Romney to argue that the economy will improve under his stewardship. Think of the economy as a bowl of soup: It’s not as hot as you’d like it, but it’s not stone cold, either.

The Federal Reserve and mainstream economists forecast another sluggish year in 2013, regardless of who wins the presidency. The U.S. economy continues to face head winds that include the European debt crisis, a global slowdown, flat business investment and consumers continuing to pay down debts rather than spend at the mall.

“I don’t see that much out there to grow beyond 2 percent to 3 percent,” said Alan Levenson, the chief economist for investment firm T. Rowe Price in Baltimore.

That’s not to say he doesn’t see bright spots. One is housing, which added to economic growth in the latest quarter after dragging against it for the past four years. Levenson expects housing starts to grow by a modest 250,000 in 2013, bringing national housing starts to about 1 million next year.

The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 2 percent from July through September. Under normal times, that’s a decent growth rate for a mature economy such as the United States’. But these aren’t normal times, and the economy has grown in fits and spurts since the Great Recession ended in June 2009.

“I’d call it middling growth. If we were in the middle of an economic expansion, this would be healthy . . . but given where we are we’d definitely like to see significantly faster growth than this,” said Scott Hoyt, senior director for forecaster Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pa.

The unemployment rate of 7.8 percent has come down only recently to where it was when Obama took office, as alternate measures of unemployment showed large numbers of Americans working two jobs to make ends meet or slogging through jobs while searching for ones that pay better.

The question of how good or bad it is right now depends to some degree on where you are, and where you’ve been. States that are enjoying an energy boom – Oklahoma, Texas and national leader North Dakota – have seen employment rise by 2.3, 2.6 and 6.3 percentage points, respectively, in the third quarter of this year over the same three months of last year.

Other states, such as Washington and California, are benefiting from a strong technology sector, which has been a driver of national growth. Employment from July to September this year rose by 1.9 and 2 percentage points, respectively, in those states.

“Business investment is slowing in the past quarter or two, but since the recovery began a lot of the growth has been driven by spending on software, IT (information technology) . . . and things like that,” said Marisa Di Natale, an economist at Moody’s Analytics who specializes in state economies.