WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House, in a slightly more optimistic forecast, predicted Thursday the economy will log solid growth and that the nation's unemployment rate will dip lower this year. The Bush administration forecast that the gross domestic product will grow by 3.6 percent, as measured from the fourth quarter of last year to the fourth quarter of this year. That is a better than its previous forecast of a 3.4 percent growth rate for this year.
The upgraded forecast comes despite a run up in energy prices.
For all of 2005, the economy expanded at a 3.2 percent pace.
The White House continues to project good economic growth in 2007 and at 3.3 percent of 3.2 percent respectively. Those forecasts are unchanged from previous estimates.
The administration's new forecasts also predicted further improvement in the nation's unemployment rate, which had edged down to 5.1 percent by the end of last year.
The White House now expects the jobless rate for all of 2006 to drop to 4.7 percent, which is lower than its previous forecast of a 5 percent unemployment rate.
However, in 2007 the unemployment rate would inch up to 4.8 percent and to 4.9 percent in 2008, according to forecast. Still, that would be better than the old forecast, which had the jobless rates in 2007 and 2008 at 5 percent.
