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Area Development - Site Selection, Facility Planning and Workforce Development

Economists Optimistic for Future Growth

05/24/2010
The National Association for Business Economics has found that economists expect U.S. growth to speed in the coming year. The survey's findings are more optimistic than when it was last conducted in February.

"Although risks involving Europe have recently escalated, the outlook in this country has improved in most respects," said Lynn Reaser, Association president and chief economist at Point Loma Nazarene University. "Growth prospects are stronger, unemployment and inflation are lower, and worries relating to consumer retrenchment and domestic financial headwinds have diminished."

The forecasters predicted 2010 and 2011 growth at 3.2 percent real GDP, an increase from the 3.1 percent it predicted in February. They also expected increased business operating rates and growing corporate profits. They predicted unemployment to decline to 9.4 percent by the end of the year, and to 8.5 percent by the end of 2011. They also reported that the housing market had bottomed out and would not reach those lows in the near future.

Although the outlook was positive, the economists still had concerns. They were very worried about high federal deficits in the future, as well as growing inflation over the next five years.

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