i am not ready to take that step. fortunately, the strength of the u. s. economy and resilience of the labor market mean the risk of waiting a little longer to ease policy is small and significantly lower than acting too soon and possibly squandering our progress on inflation. turning to the performance of the u. s. economy, the atlanta fed's gdpnow model, based on all current data, predicts first quarter growth in real gdp of 2. 1 percent at an annual rate. similarly, the consensus from the blue chip survey of private sector forecasters is 2 percent. this would be a significant slowdown from the average of around 4 percent in the second half of 2024 but still quite solid growth. 1 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches consumer spending, the largest component of gdp, seems to be moderating this quarter. retail sales fell significantly in january and then retraced about half of that decline in february. smoothing out these swings, they clearly indicate a moderation in goods spending from the second half of last year. however, services spending, excluding energy, grew moderately in january, which offset to some extent the decline in goods spending. i will be watching on friday morning to see what the february data on personal income and spending show. on the business side, surveys of purchasing managers in february continued to report results we have been hearing for over a year. for manufacturers, the institute for supply management indicated a slight contraction in activity, with new orders and production moving down a bit. this contrasts with nonmanufacturing businesses that continued to see an expansion in activity, with measures of new orders and business activity on the higher end of their readings over the past year. now let me turn to the labor market. the data is sending a mixed message on how supply and demand are evolving. as i noted earlier, payroll data estimate that employers added 275, 000 jobs in february. this robust gain is not only above the 265, 000 average level of job creation since november, but also above the 251, 000 monthly average for all of 2023. recent gains have been broad based across most sectors, rather than concentrated in a few sectors, which may be a sign that demand is not moderating as much as is needed to support continued progress on inflation. conversely, the household survey estimated that the unemployment rate rose to 3. 9 percent in february. but that increase was driven mostly by an outsized rise in the number of 16 -

, conventions of business correspondents, to mention some of the important ones. 45. as a result of all these initiatives, the reserve bank is more conscious today than before that the policies it makes have a meaning if, and only if, they make a positive difference to the real world. for example, one of the core concerns of the reserve bank ’ s anti - inflationary stance is that inflation hurts, but hurts the poor much more than the better off. but the poor are not an organized, articulate lobby. as a public policy institution, the reserve bank has the responsibility to make that extra effort to listen to the silent “ voice of the poor ”. 46. outreach is not a discrete task ; it is a continuous process. as i said earlier, the policies of the reserve bank impact the everyday lives of people. the reserve bank will remain a useful and relevant institution only if it is able to understand the hopes and aspirations of ordinary people and factor them into its policy calculus. autonomy and accountability 47. the crisis over the last five years has reopened some fundamental questions about central banks – their mandates, the limits to their autonomy and the mechanisms through which they render accountability. these questions are playing out in india too. several committees have suggested that the mandate of the reserve bank should be narrowed on the argument that its currently broad mandate is diluting its focus on price stability – the core concern of monetary policy. the financial sector legislative reforms commission ( fslrc ) which submitted its report to the government in march this year has argued that the mandate of the reserve bank should be restricted to monetary policy and regulation of banks and the payment system. 48. in the context of the mandate of central banks, one needs to keep in mind that the global financial crisis was a powerful rebuke to central banks for neglecting financial stability in the pursuit of price stability. in the immediate aftermath of the crisis, which saw the us fed and other central banks provide liquidity in spades and use unconventional tools, a consensus had emerged that financial stability needed to be explicit in the objectives of monetary policy. then the euro zone debt crisis forced the ecb to bend and stretch its mandate to bail out sovereigns, in essence implying that a central bank committed to financial stability could not ignore sovereign debt sustainability. put differently, the fundamentalist view of a central bank with a single - minded objective ( price stability ), and a single instrument ( short - term interest rate ) is being reassessed across the