Fed Dims Outlook For Jobs And Growth For 2011

[Purveyor]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve officials are more pessimistic about prospects for economic growth and employment than they were two months ago.

In an updated forecast, the Fed estimated Wednesday that the economy will grow between 2.7 percent and 2.9 percent this year. That's down from its April estimate of between 3.1 percent and 3.3 percent. The downgraded revision is an acknowledgement that the economy has slowed, in part because consumers have been squeezed by higher gasoline prices.

Growth at the rate the Fed is projecting won't be enough to significantly lower unemployment, now at 9.1 percent. The Fed estimates that unemployment will still be around 8.6 percent to 8.9 percent by the end of the year.

The Fed's downward revisions were in line with private economists, who have also been scaling back their forecasts to reflect a batch of weaker-than-expected reports in recent weeks. The latest poll of top economists surveyed by The Associated Press showed they expect the unemployment rate will be 8.7 percent at year's end, within the Fed's new estimate, and that the economy will grow 2.6 percent this year.

Read more: http://moneywatch.bnet.com/economic-news/news/fed-dims-outlook-for-jobs-and-growth-for-2011/6250918/

[Autumn]

1. Can you fix the link please? I would like

to read the complete article. It tells me "You might have used an out-dated bookmark or typed in that URL incorrectly"


I did find an article called The Fed is the Only Hope Left. That Worries Me. ... That ones seems to be interesting

[Roland99]

2. Try this one....

click me

[Autumn]

3. Thank you. That was the

whole article in the OP.

[nichomachus]

4. But, we're having a recovery

How could this happen? Would our government lie to us?

[Dept of Beer]

6. If you are wealthy then I believe that it is working well.

Otherwise not so much.

[nichomachus]

8. I knew there was a catch

[Dept of Beer]

9. This economy, like a dry drunk, is always recovering...

until that next drink or debt increase.

[No Elephants]

5. The revised forecast is always less optimistic than the initial forecast.

100% of the time.

What are the odds of that happening if every forecast is made in good faith?

[Dept of Beer]

7. That being the case the Fed should have predicted 10% growth.

[jtuck004]

10. Same old shit. This is very likely too optimistic, but

they are being deceitful for some (strategic?) reason, or perhaps they are conditioned by a longing for the good of a past economy (a very conservative thing to do, btw) to expect that it will get better, because it always did. Which would make them just wrong.

I can't find anything they point to that says there is a driver for sustainable growth in any sector that will provide in excess of 300,000 _net_ new jobs every month through the end of the year, the minimum required to lower the unemployment rate (well, unless a lot of working people die of hunger or lack of health care - is that the plan?). This also presumes that the overly large number of disheartened workers don't begin more regular searches for work. (Note to anyone that cares - they are counted as part of the unemployed workforce in the U6 number, which is down to 15.8 - they want to work, there are no jobs).

All the data in the monthly BLS report shows that our losses have been checked, but what little growth there is primarily in home health care aide, hotel, and service jobs, (all of which replace jobs which used to pay a living wage with those that don't) and not in the numbers needed to lower real unemployment.

The growth is gonna be 2.7 to 2.9? Maybe, but it was 1.8 in the first quarter of this year, about a third or less of what was predicted by the Fed last year. Regardless, it's disconnected from the lives of the majority of Americans, who instead are losing in health care, housing, jobs. What we have right now, in our hands, are numbers that point to a slow and gradual decline in living standards, lower homes values, more people hungry and homeless. A week of slightly lower unemployment applications isn't gonna make that better.

"...5 million seniors who face the threat of hunger, almost 3 million seniors who are at risk of going hungry, and almost 1 million seniors who do go hungry due to financial constraints"
___

Those were the numbers in 2009 From Senator Sanders report this month, here.

The best return on conversation would be investing our tax money in jobs programs that put the money directly on the street, not cuts on top of hungry people.

[StarsInHerHair]

11. & the MAJOR reason is JOBS! Cheezus! & these morons have PhDs?

aside from having an assload of dictator alumni, what do they TEACH at those over-priced universities? How to rape & pillage & seem patriotic?