An economic forecaster with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock says the state's economy is steadily improving, but the growth is "unremarkable."
Michael Pakko, economist for UALR’s Institute for Economic Advancement and Arkansas’ economic forecaster, said Thursday in a release from the school that the final statistics from the fourth quarter of 2011 shows Arkansas rising above the 2008-2009 recession, but the emergence is slow.
“In general, the data have confirmed our expectations that 2011 would show a slowdown in the pace of the economic recovery overall, but with clear signs of improvement in the final months of the year,” Pakko said in the release. “In some cases, our expectations for improvement in the waning months of 2011 were exceeded – in other cases our outlook was overly optimistic. Accordingly, the forecast revisions are mixed. And the outlook – in broad strokes – continues to be one of steady but unremarkable growth.”