Tucson CitizenTucson Citizen

Experts gloomy about Arizona economy

Arizona Blue Chip forecasters remain pessimistic about the state’s economy this year and next despite some encouraging news.

“Although there are scattered signs that the economy may be close to bottoming out, there is little optimism about an actual upturn in key Arizona indicators during the second half of this year,” said the monthly Arizona Blue Chip Economic Forecast produced by the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.

The few “skimpy morsels” of good news include lower fuel prices, an increase in consumer confidence and a 3.3 percent increase in the national gross domestic product in the last quarter.

But the biggest problem is the weak housing market and downward pressure on home prices. The Case-Schiller Index suggests prices have been falling about 2.5 percent a month and are just 14 percent higher than in 2004, Blue Chip said.

Blue Chip panelists also said the Federal Reserve should be more concerned about recession than inflation in the next 12 months. And 88 percent predict the Fed will try to raise short-term interest rates in the next year.

Citizen Online Archive, 2006-2009

This archive contains all the stories that appeared on the Tucson Citizen's website from mid-2006 to June 1, 2009.

In 2010, a power surge fried a server that contained all of videos linked to dozens of stories in this archive. Also, a server that contained all of the databases for dozens of stories was accidentally erased, so all of those links are broken as well. However, all of the text and photos that accompanied some stories have been preserved.

For all of the stories that were archived by the Tucson Citizen newspaper's library in a digital archive between 1993 and 2009, go to Morgue Part 2

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