Posted on 04/26/2012 6:03:24 PM PDT by Steelfish
Fed Upgrades Economic Outlook At the end of their two-day meeting, Federal Reserve policymakers said unemployment could fall to 7.8% in the fourth quarter. They project slightly faster economic growth this year, including improvement in housing.
Federal Reserve policymakers offered a more upbeat assessment of the economy after their two-day meeting ended. By Don Lee, Los Angeles Times April 25, 2012, WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve upgraded its outlook for the economy, predicting the unemployment rate would fall to as low as 7.8% in the fourth quarter — a drop that could have a significant effect on the presidential election.
Just three months ago, most Fed policymakers expected the nation's jobless figure to be 8.2%, its current rate, or higher in the last three months of the year.
The improved outlook, issued Wednesday at the end of a two-day Fed meeting, reflects a sharper-than-expected drop in unemployment in recent months and projections for slightly faster economic growth this year, including some improvement in the downtrodden housing market.
Nonetheless, the U.S. economy will expand only moderately over coming quarters, the central bank said in a policy statement that accompanied the new quarterly forecast.
Fed officials voted 9 to 1 to stick with their existing easy-money policies, reaffirming a pledge to keep short-term interest rates at record lows through 2014. The Fed's federal funds rate, which has been near zero since late 2008, influences loan rates for businesses and consumers.
The Fed's statement didn't indicate that additional efforts to boost the economy were on the way.
Some economists and critics have argued strenuously that the Fed should do more to support the economy and reduce the high unemployment rate by making another round of big bond purchases, which could help lower long-term rates and bolster growth.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Maybe they should have done this a day after finding out jobless claims are up and housing prices are down.
Whoopee FReeking Ding.
It will probably be for the same reason the official rate dropped to 8.3/8.2%, people supposedly dropping out of the labor force. What they really do is run out of unemployment benefits, and thus are more difficult to count.
I'll be running out myself soon. Six weeks left, INCLUDING this week.
I should have sold my house already, but that would feel like giving up. I'm still spending several hours a day searching for another job. When i try to apply for jobs requiring less experience than I have, I get rejected as not meeting their needs. I've had a handful of telephone interviews with the hiring/technical managers. Only two on site interviews, in 16 months, not counting the two months after we were notified of the layoff, but before it actually occurred.
If this is true, they must be expecting millions of jobless to become discourage and leave the workforce as they’ve been reporting for 3 years. The improvement certainly isn’t going to come from an increase in the number of jobs unless the government is going on a hiring spree. Perhaps all of this year’s college grads will help out the unemployment stats by going to graduate school and staying out of the work force.
Hey why don’t they just call it 0 percent unemployment, we all know they want to..anything to get their big eared kenyan freak re-elected
I suspect that this summer we'll have a surge in hiring of folks to work the Occupy XXXX protests, followed by hiring of people to be "poll watchers". All government "jobs" of course, but they will indeed count.
Sniff, sniff...is that the books I smell cooking?
Ahhh, just in time for the election... who’d -a-thunk-it...
Don’t worry, Barry will find a way to f**k it up. 8.7% by October.
For my future- unexpectedly files
I have been a stay at home dad by default since Obummer was elected. I feel your pain. Thank God for a wife with a job and a refinanced mortgage,. Coupled with the fact that I am the cheapest man alive and always saved lots of money. Just wish I had saved even more.
Since when did the Fed start making predictions on the unemployment rate? It’s another Obama ploy.
They’ll manufacture any numbers necessary to get Ubama reelected.
so, to get there, that’s what, another 2 million drop out of the work force ?
As in their declaring there is no inflation after eliminating the price of gas, food, heating and any other item needed to exist from their calculations...
Not much else they can eliminate, is there? Pretty soon its going to be, "The government today said that the inflation rate was zero, based on a survey of prices for, well, nothing."
No, BHO will make sure his subordinates announce that unemployment is lower at the end of Oct 2012 that it was when he took office. The numbers will be a total lie, honest economists will know it is a lie, but the MSM will praise BHO to the limit for ending the worst unemployment since the great depression!
How to do it, merely erase the millions who stopped looking for jobs or are working parttime from the employment calculation. The fewer people you count as not working, the lower the unemployment percentage is.
Well, in my case, the house is really a second house, necessitated by my layoff under President “BJ”, and subsequent move first to San Antonio, doing real engineering, and then to central Texas in support of the Army. We’d bought a house in San Antonio just 8 or 9 months before I was involuntarily transferred. Kept that as a rental for a year or so, but that was a money losing proposition. Bought the current 2nd house in Cen Tex.
But 6 years of supporting the Army has left what skills I do have, very rusty.
What’s the matter with me? Well, I’m old, and all my experience is with military systems, and I work at the system level, so much of the knowledge and skills are not transferable, and civilian market companies don’t understand that some are transferable.
Luckily, like you, I have a wife with a good job, (and tenure) although making less than I did. I’ll be moving back with her shortly. Which, after 13+ years living mostly apart, could be “interesting”.
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