Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey October 2015 – Notable Aspects

The October Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey was published on October 8, 2015.  The headline is “WSJ Survey:  Economists See U.S. on Cusp of ‘Full’ Employment,” WSJ Survey Says.”

I found numerous items to be notable – although I don’t necessarily agree with them – both within the article and in the “Economist Q&A” section.

Two excerpts:

The recession that began in December 2007 propelled the jobless rate to 10% and put more than 15 million Americans out of work. As recently as last year, Federal Reserve officials believed that even by the end of 2016, unemployment wouldn’t be as low as it is now—5.1% in September.

also:

Even as the unemployment rate has fallen in recent years, other signs of weakness have lingered. In particular, the share of Americans participating in the workforce declined. That rate declined in September to 62.4%, the lowest share since 1977, a period when women were far less likely to work.

As seen in the “Recession Probability” section, the average response as to the odds of another recession starting within the next 12 months was 15.34%; the average response in September’s survey was 9.97%.

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The current average forecasts among economists polled include the following:

GDP:

full-year 2015:  2.3%

full-year 2016:  2.7%

full-year 2017:  2.5%

Unemployment Rate:

December 2015: 5.0%

December 2016: 4.7%

December 2017: 4.6%

10-Year Treasury Yield:

December 2015: 2.33%

December 2016: 2.93%

December 2017: 3.37%

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Please Note – The above is excerpted from the EconomicGreenfield.com (published by StratX, LLC) post of October 9, 2015, titled “The October 2015 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey”

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StratX, LLC offers the above commentary for informational purposes only, and does not necessarily agree with the views expressed by these outside parties.

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StratX, LLC (stratxllc.com) is a management consulting firm and strategic advisory that focuses on the analysis of current and future weak(ening) economic conditions, and offers businesses and other entities advice, strategies, and actionable methods on how to optimally adapt to such challenging, complex conditions.