Going by the number of companies that announced that they were cutting their dividends in April 2014, it would appear that the U.S. economy significantly improved its performance over what has been initially indicated for the first three months of 2014.
Here, we see that the number of companies announcing dividend cuts declined from 31 in March 2014 to just 13 in April 2014.
While that figure would still suggest that the U.S. economy is experiencing recessionary conditions, it is a marked improvement over each of the first three months of the year, in which a combined total of 91 U.S. publicly-traded companies acted to cut dividend payments to their owners and shareholders.
To put that latter number in context, in April 2014, there were approximately 3,700 companies that are listed on each of the three major U.S. stock exchanges. In the first quarter of 2014, 2.5% of them cut their dividends.
Ten or fewer companies acting to cut their dividends in a single month would be consistent with healthy economic conditions in the U.S. economy.
Data Source
Standard & Poor. Monthly Dividend Action Report. [Excel Spreadsheet]. Accessed 2 May 2014.