Federal Reserve policymakers expect the U.S. economy to grow as much as 3.9 percent this year, slightly higher than earlier projections, according to minutes of the central bank's last policy meeting. The officials are feeling more confident the recovery will stay on course, the minutes say, but they remain concerned that the pace of growth isn't enough to put a serious dent in the country's 9 percent jobless rate. They expect high unemployment to persist at least through the end of 2013.
The minutes of the Jan. 25 meeting, released Wednesday, also show that Federal Reserve members unanimously support continuing its ambitious program, launched in November, to boost the economy by purchasing $600 billion of Treasury bonds.
The bond-buying is slated to be complete by the end of June. The minutes noted some discussion among committee members of whether to revise the size of the program.
"A few members noted that additional data pointing to a sufficiently strong recovery could make it appropriate to consider reducing the pace or overall size of the purchase program," the minutes said. "However, others pointed out that it was unlikely that the outlook would change by enough to substantiate any adjustments to the program before its completion."
Officials also said that despite the rise in commodity prices, they are not concerned about inflation because consumer price inflation remained low.
The Fed committee raised its 2011 GDP growth prediction from a range of 3 percent to 3.6 percent to between 3.4 percent and 3.9 percent.
They forecast that unemployment would be 8.8 percent to 9 percent at the end of this year, and that the rate will continue to drop over the next two years. Officials predict the jobless rate will drop to 6.8 percent to 7.2 percent the end of 2013, still "noticeably higher than their estimates of the longer-run rate."