U.S. Expansion Reaches New Milestone as Second-Longest: Chart

(Bloomberg) -- After a slow-but-steady slog over the past eight years and 10 months, the U.S. economic expansion is now the second-longest on record. For Federal Reserve officials beginning a two-day policy meeting on Tuesday, the task will be to ensure that its rate-tightening actions don’t prevent it from becoming the longest on July 2019, while at the same time heading off any spike in inflationary pressures. Even though the current expansion is also the slowest, with growth averaging just over 2 percent, demand looks fairly solid.

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