Nevertheless, households and businesses continue to make progress on restoring the health of their balance sheets by paying down debt and increasing savings. That is a healthy trend, and most economists, including me, believe that this trend will continue into 2012.
On the labor front, I continue to be encouraged by recent employment reports, although everyone would agree that there are still too many people unemployed in our region and in the nation. The February employment report showed a net gain of 227,000 jobs, giving us the third month in a row with job growth of more than 200,000.