How quickly remaining slack is utilized and inflation returns to target depends on future growth in activity. Real GDP appears to have increased by about 2 percent last year, the same pace as the year before.
Consumer spending has been relatively robust—rising at more than a 3 percent annual rate in the three months ending in November—but business fixed investment has been sluggish— increasing only 1-1/2 percent in the third quarter—and has changed little, on net, since the middle of 2014.