Fed Survey: US Economy growing at Moderate Pace

The Federal Reserve has revealed that despite interruptions caused by extreme winter storms, the US economy has shown a growth at moderate pace through mid-February. The Fed said that out of the 12 regions, six have reported moderate growth with modest gains seen in most other areas. The Boston district reported that the businesses in its area remained up despite several huge snowstorms.

According to the Fed survey, the consumer spending rose in most of the districts, travel and tourism increased, and manufacturing has shown solid gains with San Francisco region's aerospace companies forecasting a record year.

The information given by Fed report will be used when the central bank will meet next on March 17-18. Economists have strong faith that the Federal Reserve will not raise interest rates until June or later.

The authors from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, in the edition released on Wednesday, reported that six districts have found that the local economy has expanded at a moderate speed since the prior reporting period. Pittsburgh of the Cleveland district reported "activity rose modestly". The recent reports have repeatedly used the term "modest", which have a potential to be fairly inscrutable.

The Beige Book has described the growth as alternating mostly between "modest" and "moderate," in the last four years, which in reality do not have any difference in meaning.

Guhan Venkatu, vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and top officer of the Pittsburgh branch, said that it is fair point.

He added that no matter the speed of economic growth is modest or moderate, the message is the same that the economy is growing, but slowly.

The information for the report was collected by each of the 12 district Federal Reserve Banks for compiling an overall national summary. The publication is released every six weeks, or eight times a year.