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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's $3.9 trillion budget for next year suggests that the U.S. economic recovery that began in 2009 will continue to gain momentum over the next few years but that the unemployment rate won't fall to pre-recession levels of below 6 percent until 2017.
The White House is forecasting that the budget deficit will fall from $649 billion in the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 to $564 billion in fiscal 2015 and $458 billion in 2017.
The administration projected the unemployment rate, 6.6 per cent in January, will continue to slowly decline over the next five years, stabilizing at 5.4 percent by 2018. That's down from a high of 10 percent reached during the 2008-2009 recession.
The projections are mostly in line with those made by other forecasters.
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