Unemployment Rate Decline Could Have Yellen's Fed Scrapping Projections
How Will U.S. Jobs Report Impact Fed Policy?
By one measure, the U.S. labor market has already met the Federal Reserve's expectations for 2015: The jobless rate fell to 5.3 percent in June, matching the policy makers' projection for the end of the year, a Labor Department report Thursday showed.
The Federal Open Market Committee said in June that unemployment would ease to 5.2 to 5.3 percent in 2015, elevated just slightly from their expectation of a 5-to-5.2 percent longer-run natural rate (the joblessness that exists because of factors like labor market churn rather than due to cyclical weakness in the economy). The fact that the labor market has reached the committee's 2015 estimate already — and has done so without spurring stronger wage gains — may prompt officials to lower both the 2015 and the long-run estimate at their September meeting.