3  See, for example, Press Briefing on Q4 2012 Household Debt and Credit Report; Meta Brown and Sydnee Caldwell, “Young Student Loan Borrowers Retreat from Housing and Auto Markets Liberty Street Economics  4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  close look at the question of just how weak today’s labor market is for new college graduates by putting their recent experience into context using some hard data. It is important for us to undertake this kind of analysis because, as we’ll show, newly minted graduates always take some time to transition into the labor market and find jobs that utilize their education. And young people with college degrees still fare far better than those without. At the same time, with the sluggish jobs recovery from the recession, it’s clear that the transition of recent graduates into the labor market is taking longer, and they’ve experienced higher unemployment and higher underemployment than in years past.4 Still, while times have gotten tougher for recent graduates, we shouldn’t be too hasty in concluding that getting a college education won’t help people find good jobs. I will now ask Jason Bram to present an update of economic conditions in our region. Blog Post, April 17, 2013; and Andrew Haughwout, Donghoon Lee, Wilbert van der Klaauw, and Joelle Scally, “Just Released: The Geography of Student Debt,” Liberty Street Economics Blog Post, May 14, 2013. 4  Underemployment, for purposes of this presentation, refers to college graduates working in jobs that typically don’t require a college degree.
In its statement, the FOMC said that it may vary the pace of purchases as economic conditions evolve. As Chairman Bernanke stated in his press conference following the FOMC meeting, if the economic data over the next year turn out to be broadly consistent with the outlooks that the FOMC sees as most likely, which are roughly similar to the outlook I have already laid out, the FOMC anticipates that it would be appropriate to begin to moderate the pace of purchases later this year. Under such a scenario, subsequent reductions might occur in measured steps through the first half of next year, and an end to purchases around mid2014. Under this scenario, at the time that asset purchases came to an end, the unemployment rate likely would be near 7 percent and the economy’s momentum strengthening, supporting further robust job gains in the future. Here, a few points deserve emphasis. First, the FOMC’s policy depends on the progress we make towards our objectives. This means that the policy – including the pace of asset purchases – depends on the outlook rather than the calendar. The scenario I outlined above is only that – one possible outcome. Economic circumstances could diverge significantly from the FOMC’s expectations. If labor market conditions and the economy’s growth momentum were to be less favorable than in the FOMC’s outlook – and this is what has happened in recent years – I would expect that the asset purchases would continue at a higher pace for longer.