Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal in June predict that the U.S. economy will gain an average of nearly 160,000 jobs per month over the next twelve months. Optimism seems to be waning a bit: the same economists predicted average monthly gains of 180,000 in June, and 196,000 in May. A year ago, the July 2009 survey forecast losses of 70,000 per month.
There is also little optimism for significant improvement to the unemployment rate, as predictions were largely unchanged from prior months. This month's survey forecasts a rate of 9.4 percent by the end of 2010. Growth in 2011 is expected to remain slow, with a rate of 9.0 percent in June 2011 and 8.6 percent in December. The timeline for regaining "full employment" (5.5%) was predicted to be at least 2015 by about half of the economists surveyed.
Reflecting the current political debate, economists were split about the ongoing Senate battle over long-term unemployment benefits:
59% of those who responded to the question … said if they were in Congress they would vote to renew the extension of unemployment compensation for up to 99 weeks, a proposal that is stalled in the Senate amid partisan maneuvering and worries about the federal deficit.
"An abrupt end to unemployment benefits could do more to damage the deficit than repair it by weakening the recovery and forcing the long-term unemployed to apply for more costly long-term benefits, such as Social Security," said Diane Swonk of Mesirow Financial.
But 19 economists oppose an extension. It "increases incentive to be unemployed," said Ram Bhagavatula of Combinatorics Capital LLC.
This month's Wall Street Journal survey of economists was conducted from July 9-12. Each month the WSJ asks economists to estimate the average monthly change in nonfarm payrolls over the next twelve months. That is, the monthly changes the BLS reports each month, for the next twelve months, divided by twelve.
All Entries