Stimulus Impact Expected To Begin Tapering Off Now

White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer says the impact of the stimulus package Congress passed early this year has already reached its peak impact, and will now begin to taper off. The stimulus won’t contribute any significant economic expansion in 2010, Romer says. She testified to the Joint Economic Committee that she expects unemployment to remain above 9.5% nationally through the end of 2010, peaking at 10.1% during the second quarter of next year. She acknowledged considerable uncertainty in her estimates, pointing out that the economy needs to add nearly 100,000 jobs a month just to keep up with population growth, before any recovery of the 7.2 million jobs lost since the beginning of the recession can be expected.