United States: sluggish growth confirmed

Economic conditions continued to improve in the United States in January-February, "although harsh snowstorms in early February have dampened activity in several regions," according to the Beige Book released Wednesday by the U.S. central bank (Fed).

The document states that the activity has increased in nine of the twelve regions (by cutting the Fed), but that "in most cases, these improvements were small.

The information provided by the Beige Book are very important because they serve as a reference to the meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Fed scheduled for March 16, which will decide on changes in interest rates.

Regarding the labor market, for which the Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke, gave recently bleak outlook before Congress, the document notes that "the pace of layoffs has slowed in most regions, but that hiring plans of companies remain "soft in general."

As for expenditure on household consumption, traditional engine of growth of the country which is struggling to regain its role, they "grew slightly in many areas, but have been hampered in some by the snowfalls of early check cash advance

This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 3:34 pm and is filed under economics, economy, finance, news, world. Follow the comments through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and trackback are closed.

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