In his annual talk to the Rotary Club of Atlanta, Federal Reserve of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic compared the economic situation to last year’s forecast.

“I was reflecting on last year when we were here – the whole message I wanted to impart was that inflation was too high,” said Bostic, remembering inflation was hovering at 7 percent at the beginning of 2023. “Fast forward a year. Inflation has come down quite a bit – more than I expected. It’s come down a lot.”

Inflation is at 3 percent, still short of the Federal Reserve’s goal of 2 percent. But much better than where the economy was a year ago. Inflation peaked at 9.1 percent in. June 2022.

“I’ve had to adjust my projection,” Bostic admitted. “My projection was that the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth rate would be 1 percent. It’s at 2.5 percent. That’s a big jump.”

The jobs picture also is doing well – with unemployment not rising significantly with the drop of inflation.

“A year ago, unemployment was 3.4 percent. Today it’s at 3.8 percent,” said Bostic, who has been president of the Atlanta Fed since 2017. “That’s not what you would expect to see with inflation coming down. When I took this job, the unemployment projection was 4.2 percent with 2 percent inflation or less. We are in a very solid position right now.”

Bostic, who has been president of the Atlanta Fed since 2017, was interviewed by his predecessor – Dennis Lockhart. The two of them have become an annual economic comedy show – quite a departure from the standard economic forecast.

Lockhart asked Bostic if he would describe the situation as inflation, deflation or disinflation.

“This is disinflation,” Bostic said. “The amount (of inflation) is less than it was the year before. We were at 7 percent. Now we are at…