More from the revenue forecast: Housing, unemployment

Raha said they expect home prices to fall further through most of 2010.

“Washington is an export dependent state but the rest of the world is in recession and will lag us in recovery,” he said. Exports are down, and “we don’t expect exports to (give) us any assistance in our recovery.”

“Keeping in mind all of that and the updated revenue forecast, we updated our employment forecast. We now expect a peak-to-trough decline of 145,000 jobs.” Of that, 122,000 of those have already been lost. So, he said, the remaining 23,000 jobs will disappear over the next year or so.

“The unemployment rate, currently at 9.4 percent will peak at 10.6 percent in the third quarter of 2010.”

Raha said the updated forecast shows deflationary pressures decreasing faster.

Raha said May collections were well above forecast because of early payments, but that June will fall short from the previous forecast for the same reason.

“Things are beginning to move sideways rather than due South. In today’s economy, sideways is good,” Raha said.

Tags: Revenue forecast