"What will lead to more hiring and, consequently, further declines in unemployment?" Bernanke said in last month's speech National Association for Business Economics. "The short answer is more-rapid economic growth."
The U.S. economy expanded at a 3 percent annual rate in the final three months of 2011, helping boost job growth to an average monthly gain of 246,000 from December through February. Growth may slow to 2 percent in the first quarter, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of economists.
Manufacturing, a mainstay of the recovery, has cooled in recent months. The Institute for Supply Management's factory index was 53.4 in March, down from a high of 59.9 at the beginning of last year. Readings above 50 signal expansion.
"Overall, we ought to focus our attention on the fact that we've got to keep the growth rate of the economy at a sufficient level that it generates jobs," said Austan Goolsbee, former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers and an economist at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. That probably means the economy has to grow faster than 2 percent, he said.