In CBO’s latest projections, economic growth slows and then picks up over the 2023–2025 period. That initial slowdown in economic growth drives up unemployment. Inflation continues to gradually decline.
The Congressional Budget Office periodically updates its economic forecast to ensure that its projections reflect recent economic developments and current law. This report provides details about CBO’s most recent projections of the economy through 2025, which reflect economic developments as of June 22, 2023.
Over the 2023–2025 period, in CBO’s latest projections:
Economic growth slows and then picks up. The growth of real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) slows to a 0.4 percent annual rate during the second half of 2023; for the year as a whole, real GDP increases by 0.9 percent. After 2023, growth accelerates as monetary policy eases. Real GDP increases by 1.5 percent in 2024 and by 2.4 percent in 2025.
That initial slowdown in economic growth drives up unemployment. The unemployment rate reaches 4.1 percent by the end of 2023 and 4.7 percent by the end of 2024 before falling slightly, to 4.5 percent, in 2025. Payroll employment declines by an average of 10,000 jobs per month in 2024 and rises by an average of 6,000 jobs per month in 2025.
Inflation continues to gradually decline. Growth in the price index for personal consumption expenditures (PCE) slows from 3.3 percent in 2023 to 2.6 percent in 2024 and 2.2 percent in 2025. That slowdown reflects several factors, including softening labor markets and flagging growth in home prices (and even declines in some regions), which passes through to rents.
The Federal Reserve further increases the target range for the federal funds rate (the interest rate that financial institutions charge each other for overnight loans of their monetary reserves) in mid-2023. It begins reducing that target range in the first half of 2024, as inflation continues to cool. The federal funds rate declines from 5.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023 to 4.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024 and 3.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2025.
