Federal Reserve projects 9.3 percent unemployment rate by the end of the year

The Federal Reserve is projecting the U.S. unemployment rate will reach 9.3 percent by the end of the year.

The Fed is anticipating a 9.3 percent unemployment rate by the end of 2020 and a 6.5 percent unemployment rate by the end of 2021, The Washington Post reports. The Fed officials are also projecting an unemployment rate of 5.5 percent in 2022, The New York Times reports.

These numbers come after May's jobs report showed the unemployment rate surprisingly declined to 13.3 percent from 14.7 percent as states reopened, despite economists expecting it would climb to nearly 20 percent. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell noted Wednesday it "remains historically high," however; the unemployment rate in February was at a near 50-year low of 3.5 percent prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

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"The extent of the downturn, and the pace of recovery, remain extraordinarily uncertain, and will depend in large part on our success in containing the virus," Powell said. "We all want to get back to normal, but a full recovery is unlikely to occur until people are confident that it is safe to re-engage in a broad range of activities."

The Post notes that the Congressional Budget Office, meanwhile, projects that the unemployment rate won't reach 9.3 percent until the end of 2021 and will be above 11 percent through the end of this year.

The Fed didn't change interest rates on Wednesday, and Powell said that "we're not thinking about raising rates. We're not even thinking about thinking about raising rates."