The Fed’s Economic Outlook

The federal Reserve just released the minutes from its last meeting. Here’s a look at their economic outlook.

The U.S. economic projection prepared by the staff for the June FOMC meeting was stronger than the April forecast. Real GDP growth was projected to increase substantially this year, with a correspondingly rapid decline in the unemployment rate. Further reductions in social distancing and favorable financial conditions were expected to support output growth, even though the effects of fiscal stimulus on economic growth were starting to unwind. With the boost to growth from continued reductions in social distancing assumed to fade after 2021 and the further unwinding of fiscal stimulus, GDP growth was expected to step down in 2022 and 2023. Nevertheless, with monetary policy assumed to remain highly accommodative, the staff continued to anticipate that real GDP growth would outpace that of potential over most of this period, leading to a decline in the unemployment rate to historically low levels.

The staff’s near-term outlook for inflation was revised up markedly, but the staff continued to expect the rise in inflation this year to be transitory. The 12 month change in total and core PCE prices had moved well above 2 percent in April, and incoming CPI data suggested that PCE price inflation would remain high in May. The recent 12-month measures of inflation were being boosted significantly by the base effects of the drop in prices from the spring of 2020 rolling out of the calculation. In addition, the surge in demand as the economy reopened further, combined with production bottlenecks and supply constraints, contributed to the large recent monthly price increases. The staff expected the 12-month change in PCE prices to gradually move down in coming months, reflecting, importantly, the fading of base effects along with smaller expected monthly price increases, but PCE price inflation was forecast to still be well above 2 percent at the end of this year. Over the next year, the transitory price increases caused by bottlenecks and supply constraints were expected to largely reverse, and the growth in demand was forecast to ease. As a result, inflation was projected to slow to slightly below 2 percent in 2022 before moving back up to a bit above 2 percent in 2023, supported by high levels of resource utilization.

The staff continued to see the uncertainty surrounding the economic outlook as elevated, although increasingly widespread vaccinations, along with ongoing policy support, were viewed as helping to diminish some of these uncertainties. Nevertheless, the staff judged that the risks around their strong baseline projection for economic activity were still tilted somewhat to the downside, as adverse alternative courses of the pandemic—including the possibility of the spread of more-contagious, more-vaccine-resistant COVID-19 variants—seemed more likely than outcomes that would be more favorable than in the baseline forecast. The staff continued to view the risks around the inflation projection as roughly balanced. On the upside, bottlenecks, supply disruptions, and historically high rates of resource utilization were seen as potential sources of greater-than-expected inflationary pressures, particularly if there were a significant rise in inflation expectations that altered inflation dynamics. On the downside, if the effects of supply constraints proved to be transitory, as expected, then the inflation record from the past 25 years suggested the possibility that low underlying trend inflation and a flat Phillips curve could cause inflation to revert to relatively low levels despite a strengthening economy.

Posted by on July 7th, 2021 at 2:25 pm


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