Full text of U.S. Financial Data : August 24, 2000

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August 24, 2000

USFinancialData
THE WEEK’S HIGHLIGHTS:
■ At its August 22 meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee
(FOMC) voted to keep its federal funds target rate at 6 1/2 percent.
The FOMC press release issued after the meeting noted the following:
Recent data have indicated that the expansion of aggregate
demand is moderating toward a pace closer to the rate of growth
of the economy’s potential to produce. The data also have
indicated that more rapid advances in productivity have been
raising that potential growth rate as well as containing costs
and holding down underlying price pressures.
Nonetheless, the Committee remains concerned about the
risk of a continuing gap between the growth of demand and
potential supply at a time when the utilization of the pool of
available workers remains at an unusually high level. Against
the background of its long-term goals of price stability and
sustainable economic growth and of the information currently
available, the Committee believes the risks continue to be
weighted mainly toward conditions that may generate
heightened inflation pressures in the foreseeable future.
■ According to the Philadelphia Fed’s Third-Quarter Survey of
Professional Forecasters, real GDP growth is expected to average
5.2 percent in 2000 and 3.2 percent in 2001. CPI inflation is
projected to average 3.3 percent in 2000 and 2.8 percent in 2001.
If realized, real GDP growth in 2000 would be the fastest since
1984, while inflation would be the highest since 1991.

All data are seasonally adjusted unless otherwise indicated.
U.S. Financial Data is published weekly by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of
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