Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the U.S. recovery probably won’t quickly bring down the unemployment rate, which is likely to stay “high for a while.”

By Scott Lanman and Joshua Zumbrun at Bloomberg.com

Given the depth of the recession, the recovery is “moderate paced,” Bernanke said last night in a question-and- answer session with Sam Donaldson, the ABC News journalist, in Washington. In Europe, policy makers “are committed to avoiding default in Greece” and elsewhere, he said.

While the Fed will raise interest rates from a record low before the economy returns to “full employment,” Bernanke said officials don’t know when that process will start. The banking system isn’t fully healthy and lenders are “cautious” in providing credit, he said.

“The unemployment rate is still going to be high for a while, and that means that a lot of people are going to be under financial stress,” Bernanke said at the event, part of a dinner hosted by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Stocks swung between gains and losses and Treasury securities fell today. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.1 percent to 1,051.72 at 11:46 a.m. in New York. The 10-year Treasury note declined, pushing the yield up to 3.17 percent from 3.15 percent late yesterday.

Fed Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans said today that monetary policy is “appropriately, very accommodative” and that consumer spending will grow and inflation will be stable.

FULL STORY

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