CRIME ON CAMPUS

April 26, 2012

April 25, 2012

Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, held a rare press conference today after a two-day meeting with the Federal Open Marketing Committee (FOMC) and said the inflation rate for the US should remain at or below 2% through the fourth quarter of 2014 and the unemployment should continue to decline.

Bernanke was positive about the inflation rate, but still considered the unemployment rate, currently at 8.2%, as elevated. He said the employment rate was still too large, but said the committee projected the rate could possibly reach 6.7% to 7.4% by the fourth quarter of 2014.

Where the unemployment rate stands currently, it has dropped nearly an entire percentage point over the course of a year, but bachelor’s degree holders unemployment rate has continued to increase. According to an Associated Press report, 53% of bachelor’s degree graduates under the age of 25 are either unemployed or underemployed.

The job prospects for bachelor’s degree holders are at their lowest levels in more than a decade, according to the report. The rate was at a 41% low in 2000.

Bernanke said the most frustrating part of the economy’s employment recovery has been its pace.

“The recovery has been so slow,” he said in his press conference. “As the head winds lift, financial stress lessens, and the housing economy improves, we hope to see the employment improve.”

He said he expects the growth in employment to remain at a slow pace.

That news is not completely reassuring to recent bachelor’s degree graduates looking into the job market, since a majority of them are currently represented by jobs that require a high school diploma or less.