Despite the increased volatility and uncertainty seen in the markets in 2015, the United States is actually on track to do something it hasn’t done in a decade. According to a recent study, the U.S. economy is poised to grow at its fastest pace in the past 10 years.
Economists from the University of Michigan see the annual unemployment rate falling below 5% next year for the first time since 2007. The national economy will add 4.7 million jobs over the next two years — 2.4 million jobs in 2016 and another 2.3 million during 2017 — after gaining 2.9 million jobs this year, according to an annual forecast from the group.
The data suggest that unemployment will continue to fall from last year’s rate of 6.2% to 5.3% this year, 4.9% next year and 4.6% the year after, which should help part-time workers who want to find full-time jobs.
Overall economic output growth, as measured by real gross domestic product (GDP), will rise from 2.4% last year and this year to 2.6% in 2016 and 2.9% in 2017.
In addition to GDP and employment growth over the next two years, the forecast calls for solid growth in housing starts and light vehicle sales.
Construction of new homes, both single-family and multi-unit housing, is expected to continue to rise from a million units last year to 1.13 million units this year, 1.31 million next year and 1.47 million the year after. Sales of existing single-family homes are expected to increase from 4.3 million last year to 4.7 million this year, 4.9 million in 2016 and 5.0 million in 2017.
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While the University of Michigan economists predict many positives for the U.S. economy in 2016 and 2017 — from home sales to employment and GDP growth — all is not rosy, they say.
Aditi Thapar at the Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics in the University of Michigan Department of Economics said:
The turmoil in financial markets earlier this year served as a reminder that the United States is not insulated from economic events in the rest of the world. Over the past year, several of our trading partners experienced weakness in their economies, prices for a wide range of globally traded commodities declined sharply and the dollar appreciated substantially—which, along with the ongoing collapse in oil prices, reduced inflation and adversely affected net exports.
Despite the weakness in inflation (core consumer price inflation is projected to climb no higher than 2% by 2017), the University of Michigan forecasters expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates next month for the first time in nine years.
They predict that the three-month Treasury bill rate will rise to 1.3% by the end of 2016 and to 2.2% by the end of 2017; the 10-year Treasury bond yield is projected to reach 2.7% by the end of next year and 3.1% by the end of 2017; and 30-year mortgage rates are expected to rise from 4.3% at the end of 2016 to 4.7% at the end of 2017.
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