‘Economic forecasts filled with uncertainty’

WASHINGTON, D.C.: Efforts to forecast the US economy’s path to recovery from the current deep downturn face “a whole new level of uncertainty,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said on Thursday (Friday in Manila).

Not only is there the difficulty predicting how the coronavirus pandemic will play out, it is also unclear how American workers and consumers will react as lockdowns aimed at limiting the spread of the virus are lifted, Powell said in an address to a virtual Fed conference.