Fed Closes Ranks as Improving Economy Won't Derail QE2

Federal Reserve officials closed ranks to signal that an improving economy won’t derail their plan to cut unemployment by pumping $600 billion into the financial system.

The pace of recovery is “insufficient to bring about a significant improvement in labor market conditions,” the Federal Open Market Committee said yesterday in a statement in Washington that won unanimous support for the first time in 13 months.

“They’re trying very hard in their statement to get people to stop jumping the gun” with an expectation that the record stimulus will end before the planned conclusion in June, said Ethan Harris, head of developed-markets economic research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York. The Fed is saying, “we’re continuing our buying program and we’re not going to move for a long time,” he said. Harris put the odds of completing the purchases at 95 percent.

Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his colleagues are strengthening their commitment to the asset purchases as two new members, Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser and Dallas Fed chief Richard Fisher, joined the policy-setting panel. Both men, who earlier criticized the program, supported the committee in saying the easing was needed to “promote a stronger pace of economic recovery.”

Plosser and Fisher were among four regional Fed presidents who rotated into voting slots for the year at this week’s meeting. They replaced officials including the Kansas City Fed’s Thomas Hoenig, who favored tighter policy as the lone dissenter in all eight decisions last year.