Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), opened his testimony before Congress this morning by warning that the unemployment rate could remain at 9 percent through 2012.
“We expect that under current law, growth and output will remain slow, and as a result job gains will be limited — leaving the unemployment rate close to 9 percent through the end of 2012,” Elmensdorf said.
He also noted that, “Although total output started to expand more than two years ago, the pace of recovery has been very slow compared with the average recovery since World War II.”
