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America’s seven-year-long recovery is among the longest in its history, and experts project the long journey back from the Great Recession will persist through 2019—breaking an all-time record of 120 months of recovery.
The slow improvement is due in large part to the Federal Reserve’s reluctance to raise interest rates, which hadn’t been raised for nine years until last December when it increased by a mere 0.25%.
In the past, modern-day recessions had been sparked by a cycle of interest rate hikes that made it difficult and more expensive to obtain loans for a car, mortgage or corporate tax, MarketWatch reports. And though some economists are worried about the nature of this recovery—which is the slowest it’s been since World War II—central banks remain concerned about the fragile nature of the economy. [MW]
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