by Matthew Rusling

    WASHINGTON, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Could the end of the U.S. recession be just around the corner?

    Economists' predictions are a mixed bag. Some say it will take a few months. Others say the recovery is already here. And still others say Americans are in for a long slog through more hard times.

    Those who predict that the end is near are reporting a mixture and good and bad news -- good that an uptick may be soon, but bad that people may not feel it for a long time.

    Barry Bosworth, former presidential advisor and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C. think tank, believes the economy will stop contracting by this year's third quarter and grow by the fourth quarter. Robert Johnson, associate director of economic analysis at Morningstar, an independent research provider, also expects a rebound around the same time.

    "I think the consumer is getting stronger. Housing prices have also begun to stabilize," he said, adding that layoffs have slowed.

    Those combined factors, along with the 250 dollar check the government recently sent out to millions of Americans in a bid to spur spending, should spark a rise in consumer demand, he said.

    Increasing demand often pushes struggling economies back to prior levels of growth and unemployment, experts said.

    But Bosworth said that given the depth of this recession, unemployment is unlikely to return to pre-recession levels for quite a while.

    While jobless rates will rise more slowly than before, they will not decrease in the short term, he said.

    Even if a strong recovery occurs, employment numbers would lag behind for at least six months, as employers are hesitant to start hiring again until they are sure the economy has truly turned a corner, economists said.

    That means people will still struggle to pay bills and families may still be forced to dip into their savings to get by -- if they have any left after 17 months of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

    Bosworth said, "(The economy) will stop declining but not enough to spark a real decrease in unemployment."

    Economists at the American Bankers Association also espoused this view.

    "The economy will return to growth, but not to health," Bruce Kasman, chairman of the association's economic advisory committee, told reporters.

    "Growth in the coming quarters is likely to gather momentum but will not prove sufficiently robust to undo much of the severe damage done to our labor markets and public finances."

    Other economists project a long slog ahead and say the downturn will not hit bottom until 2010, contending that the worldwide recession will reduce trade more than expected.

    "That's a respectable view but it's a minority view," said Bill Beach, director of the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C. think tank, adding that he sides with those predicting a third quarter rebound.

    Meanwhile, Obama admitted in a speech on Tuesday that his stimulus package has not worked as well as his administration thought it would.

    Economists also warn that the stimulus may do little to jolt the economy back to life.

    Bosworth said the package is too small to lift the economy out of the doldrums and put it on track to previous levels of growth.

    While it will initially spark some growth once it kicks in, funds could eventually run their course, limiting the economic boost, he said.

    Stimulus monies have also been slow to make their way out of government coffers, as recipients scramble to find projects on which to spend the funds, experts said.

    Other economists, however, foresee a rosier picture and point to stabilization in job and housing markets as signals that the recession has already ended.

    Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist with Charles Schwab & Co., told CNN Money.com that the downturn halted sometime during the past two months.

    Sonders pointed to the Leading Indicators Index, which looks at key data such as stock prices, orders for consumer goods, building permits and other information. She noted a sharp increase in May for the second month in a row.

    The index reported a 1.2 percent increase last month after a 1.1 percent rise in April -- the biggest two-month rise in nearly seven years.

    Opponents balked at this view, countering that while the economy has pulled out of the turmoil that happened between September and February, the downturn has not yet hit bottom.

    Housing and labor markets will remain weak and the unemployment rate has increased sharply in recent months, they said.

    Perhaps the grimmest outlook, however, came on Monday from a World Bank report, which forecast a 3 percent decline in the United States -- the world's largest economy and the driver of worldwide growth -- after estimating a 2.4 percent contraction three months ago.

    The report said this recession would be particularly difficult to climb out of because it comes on the heels of a major financial crisis and spans virtually the entire globe.

    The global economy will shrink by nearly 3 percent, compared with previous predictions of a nearly 2 percent decline, the report said.

    Stocks tumbled on the news. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by about 97 points and the S&P 500-stock index fell 1.6 percent. The Nasdaq Composite Index decreased 1.6 percent.

    Beach, however, disagrees with the World Bank's assessment. "I was most struck by the fact that it's out of date," he said,contending that it reflects the data from two months ago, before the United States and Europe showed signs of recovery.