Bernard Markstein News Today

U.S. central bankers won’t be ready to fully let up the brakes and give the U.S. economy more gas for more than two years.

Rate cuts might not bring the relief consumers have been waiting for.

WASHINGTON, (Feb. 5,2024 ) — The not seasonally adjusted national construction unemployment rate at 4.4% was unchanged in December 2023 from the previous year,

Inflation slowed much faster than expected last year, but economists still aren’t optimistic that the inflation problem will be solved for another year — if not more.

The U.S. economy has been surprisingly resilient and dodged recession forecasts for more than a year now. Even so, economists say the risks of one are still high.

The majority of experts (93 percent) surveyed for Bankrate’s latest Economic Indicator poll say the Fed will cut rates in 2024.

Experts have now upgraded their forecasts for the labor market for three consecutive quarters, though they continue to expect a hiring slowdown.

Maryland has the lowest estimated NSA construction unemployment rates of September 2023 at 0.4%.

Bankrate’s latest poll matched the Fed’s own outlook, with officials in September showing they don’t expect to cut rates until at least 2024.

Those probabilities are still close to a coin flip, but they’re down from an average forecast of 59 percent just last quarter.