The U.S. economy grew at a “modest to moderate” pace in recent weeks, with the housing market and construction improving nationwide, the Federal Reserve said in a report Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The Beige Book’s overall assessment of the U.S. economy was unchanged from the June 5 report.<\/p>\n
“Overall economic activity continued to increase at a modest to moderate pace since the previous survey,” said the report covering late May through July 8.<\/p>\n
The rebounding housing market continued to be a bright spot in the recovery.<\/p>\n
“Residential real estate and construction activity increased at a moderate to strong pace in all reporting districts,” the report said.<\/p>\n
Most of the Fed’s 12 districts reported a pickup in manufacturing, consumer spending and auto sales, while hiring “held steady or increased at a measured pace,” the report said.<\/p>\n
The Beige Book is used by Fed policymakers to frame monetary policy decisions.<\/p>\n
Based on anecdotal information gathered in the central bank’s 12 districts, the report is published eight times a year roughly two weeks ahead of Federal Open Market Committee meetings.<\/p>\n
The FOMC is scheduled to meet on July 30-31. At its June meeting, the FOMC kept its stimulus program locked in place, saying unemployment remains high and growth was curbed by sharp federal spending cuts.<\/p>\n
The latest Beige Book said that manufacturing activity had increased in almost all districts, boosted in part by “strong demand in residential construction” and automobile production.<\/p>\n
Consumer spending — which accounts for two thirds of U.S. economic activity, overall increased but there were pockets of retail softness, particularly in the New York region.<\/p>\n
An unusually wet June appeared to damp down consumer spending and tourism in the eastern half of the country, according to contacts surveyed.<\/p>\n
But the picture on the slowly recovering jobs market highlighted deep woes.<\/p>\n
Contacts in the Philadelphia, Richmond and Chicago districts noted a “reluctance to hire permanent or full-time workers,” the report said.<\/p>\n
And in the Richmond and Chicago districts, there was stronger demand for part-time workers.<\/p>\n
“Wage pressures remained limited or contained” in most districts, the report said.<\/p>\n
The Fed has made the reduction of high unemployment, which stood at 7.6 percent last month, an overarching goal of its stimulus program.<\/p>\n
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke reiterated Wednesday that the Fed stimulus could be wound down next year if economic growth remains steady as forecast.<\/p>\n
But with unemployment still high and falling slowly and inflation very low, he said, “a highly accommodative monetary policy will remain appropriate for the foreseeable future.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The U.S. economy grew at a “modest to moderate” pace in recent weeks, with the housing market and construction improving nationwide, the Federal Reserve said in a report Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The Beige Book’s overall assessment of the U.S. economy was unchanged from the June 5 report.<\/p>\n
“Overall economic activity continued to increase at a modest to moderate pace since the previous survey,” said the report covering late May through July 8.<\/p>\n
The rebounding housing market continued to be a bright spot in the recovery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":10113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}