Fed Officials Increasingly Believe Economy Will Have ‘Soft Landing’ [Video]

If the Federal Reserve’s latest economic projections are anything close to accurate, the U.S. economy is set to recover from a bout of high inflation without a recession and mass unemployment—and, depending on your definitions, you can count on as few as 0 hands how many times that’s ever happened before.

Officials at the Federal Open Market Committee are growing increasingly optimistic about the possibility the economy will have a “soft landing,” rather than an economic crash, from the high inflation that flared up in 2021 as the economy reopened from the pandemic, according to economic projections they released Wednesday.

When each member of the 19-person committee was polled about the future of key economic indicators, the median answers projected the economy growing faster, and unemployment staying lower than their previous round of estimates in December. The median GDP growth estimate for 2024 rose to 2.1% from 1.4%, and the projection for unemployment fell to 4% from …