America's economic recovery from the current financial crisis is slower than the previous ones, a White House official said on Monday, adding that this is apparently because the crisis has been worse-than-ever.
"So over a five-year period, the typical recession since World War II has been followed by a growth rate of a little less than 4.2% over five years. Our forecast is about 3.8% over five years," President's Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Austan Goolsbee said.
"So its slower than the typical recovery and we assume that because it's harder to get out of a financial recession," he told reporters as the White House unveiled its Annual Budget.
Goolsbee said the real GDP growth on a year-over-year basis, the administration is forecasting 2.7% in 2011, 3.6% in 2012, 4.4% in 2013. "So our growth rate for 2011 is a fair bit lower than the consensus of private forecasters surveyed by the blue chip or by Survey of Professional Forecasters," he added.
"In the longer run we anticipate catching back up, that the potential GDP of the United States has not been severely damaged by this recession. So our medium-run forecast is a bit faster. It's within the so-called central tendency that comes out of the Fed FOMC forecast of last November, which is a -- the reasonable range in which they drop off the highest and lowest. It is rather in the center of that central tendency,” he said.
In 2012, the unemployment rate is projected to be 8.2% as against 9.1% in 2011. It currently stands at 9.0%.
"Unemployment is likely to fluctuate through the year, but any revisions that we have will come out at the mid- session review," he added.