U.S. manufacturing "less bad"

The U.S. manufacturing sector shrunk at a slower rate in April than in March, back to a pace of contraction that is normally associated with normal recessions, causing some pundits to erroneously apply the "less bad" label to yet another economic statistic.
Not dwelling too much about the nature of the chart above, where numbers above and below 50 indicate expansion and contraction, respectively, you could easily convince yourself that conditions got better last month, not worse.