Suitably Flip

White House Sets Bar Hideously Low For 2010

After their epic whiff upon attempting to forecast unemployment with vs. without "stimulus," I suppose it makes sense that they would try to guide our expectations lower in time for the midterms.

But if they really expect this prediction to pan out, the whole administration might want to go ahead and resign in disgrace now.

White House economist Christina Romer warned this morning that unemployment is “unlikely to end 2010 much below” the current rate of nearly 10%.

Romer offered that bleak assessment of the job market for a difficult Democratic election year even as she defended White House economic policies.

In prepared testimony to Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, Romer, chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, conceded “the likelihood that labor market conditions will remain painfully weak through 2010.” Fiscal stimulus “will likely be contributing little to growth” by the middle of next year, she said, although hundreds of billions of tax dollars will still be flowing into the economy.

Economic growth, she said, could dip below forecasts, and in that case the unemployment rate “would likely continue to rise.”

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White House Sets Bar Hideously Low For 2010

After their epic whiff upon attempting to forecast unemployment with vs. without "stimulus," I suppose it makes sense that they would try to guide our expectations lower in time for the midterms.

But if they really expect this prediction to pan out, the whole administration might want to go ahead and resign in disgrace now.

White House economist Christina Romer warned this morning that unemployment is “unlikely to end 2010 much below” the current rate of nearly 10%.

Romer offered that bleak assessment of the job market for a difficult Democratic election year even as she defended White House economic policies.

In prepared testimony to Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, Romer, chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, conceded “the likelihood that labor market conditions will remain painfully weak through 2010.” Fiscal stimulus “will likely be contributing little to growth” by the middle of next year, she said, although hundreds of billions of tax dollars will still be flowing into the economy.

Economic growth, she said, could dip below forecasts, and in that case the unemployment rate “would likely continue to rise.”