Dennis Lockhart, who is the the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta presented a guarded prognosis for the long suffering economy; he was speaking at the Atlanta Rotary Club. Dennis Lockhart specifically stated that there will be a growth in the economy in 2010; however it will be small enough to make an evident change in the joblessness in the Atlanta area, and he does urge Atlantians to expect a better year but not a gangbuster recovery.

Lockhart further explains that although the unemployment rate shown is 9.7 it only includes people who are not working however are looking for job, if the people currently without jobs and are not looking for jobs in addition to the ones who are part time workers but would rather go for full time are to be considered the unemployment rate would escalate to 16.8% which is a staggering 73% grater then estimated. The statistics thus stated proves according to him that the days prior to recession are far away.

While studying the Atlanta district which includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia and parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee there is a positive improvement however the protracted period on joblessness is something to worry about Lockhart says. Whatever the improvement in the economy, it is constantly threatened because of the deteriorating commercial real estate market. According to him there should be 160,000 new placements a month but these have not yet started and these are in the face of 8 million jobs lost over a period of 2 yrs.

For the purpose of fighting inflation the fed has had to raise rates but that is not what is a problem in the current scenario and he defends the Fed also by saying that it has also added huge amounts to the money supply while slashing rates.