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WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's top economic adviser said Friday the nation's economic growth could dip into negative territory for the current quarter, an assessment that tracks with many outside experts but is the most pessimistic to come so far from the White House.
"We don't really know whether it will be negative or not," Edward Lazear, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters at the White House. "We have definitely downgraded our forecast for this quarter."
He would not discuss whether the White House is predicting the economy will actually fall into a recession. Some economists think it already has.
"I'm still not saying that there's a recession," Lazear said. "We are going to have a weak growth quarter, and whether you call that a recession or not is something that we won't know for many months."
Still, the White House was eager to put a good face on the economic picture, clouded by the release earlier Friday of a report showing the economy lost 63,000 jobs last month, the most in five years. Shortly after Lazear appeared to speak to reporters, Bush was to make a hastily arranged statement on the economy at the White House.
Lazear said the White House predicts jobs numbers will pick up by spring and growth will rebound by summer, driven primarily by a recently passed stimulus package.
"This quarter will be our weakest quarter," he said. "There are indicators suggesting that growth will pick up and pick up quickly. So the question is how quickly will it pick up."
He highlighted what he said was the good news in Friday's jobs reports: that is showed that unemployment dipped, wages grew and weekly hours stayed the same. However, the jobless rate fell to 4.8% in February from 4.9% because so many people stopped looking for work and left the labor force. And average hourly earnings for jobholders rose only an anemic 0.3% from the previous month.
"Obviously we were disappointed," Lazear said about the job losses.
"We don't really know whether it will be negative or not," Edward Lazear, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters at the White House. "We have definitely downgraded our forecast for this quarter."
He would not discuss whether the White House is predicting the economy will actually fall into a recession. Some economists think it already has.
"I'm still not saying that there's a recession," Lazear said. "We are going to have a weak growth quarter, and whether you call that a recession or not is something that we won't know for many months."
Still, the White House was eager to put a good face on the economic picture, clouded by the release earlier Friday of a report showing the economy lost 63,000 jobs last month, the most in five years. Shortly after Lazear appeared to speak to reporters, Bush was to make a hastily arranged statement on the economy at the White House.
Lazear said the White House predicts jobs numbers will pick up by spring and growth will rebound by summer, driven primarily by a recently passed stimulus package.
"This quarter will be our weakest quarter," he said. "There are indicators suggesting that growth will pick up and pick up quickly. So the question is how quickly will it pick up."
He highlighted what he said was the good news in Friday's jobs reports: that is showed that unemployment dipped, wages grew and weekly hours stayed the same. However, the jobless rate fell to 4.8% in February from 4.9% because so many people stopped looking for work and left the labor force. And average hourly earnings for jobholders rose only an anemic 0.3% from the previous month.
"Obviously we were disappointed," Lazear said about the job losses.