The unemployment rate continues to fall faster than many policymakers had been forecasting. For instance, in the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) submitted in December 2013, the central tendency of FOMC participants was an unemployment rate of 6.3 to 6.6 percent at the end of 2014, and by the end of 2015, the central tendency was expected to be 5.8 to 6.1 percent.
We have clearly exceeded these expectations. The unemployment rate is now below where the Committee thought it would be at the end of 2014 and is now within the range expected at the end of 2015. Thus, it is fair to say that we are at least a year ahead of where we thought we would be when we started to taper asset purchases.