Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, Current economic and financial conditions and the federal budget, Before the Committee on the Budget, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., June 3, 2009
“The U.S. economy has contracted sharply since last fall, with real gross domestic product (GDP) having dropped at an average annual rate of about 6 percent during the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of this year. Among the enormous costs of the downturn is the loss of nearly 6 million jobs since the beginning of 2008. The most recent information on the labor market–the number of new and continuing claims for unemployment insurance through late May–suggests that sizable job losses and further increases in unemployment are likely over the next few months.”
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