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Bernanke told lawmakers Tuesday that the economy has started to show signs of stabilization.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers Tuesday that the economy has started to show signs of stabilization, although he cautioned that improvement is uncertain and likely to be gradual going forward.

Bernanke also reiterated that the Fed will be able to keep inflation at bay by unwinding many of the various lending programs it has put in place to encourage banks to start lending again. But he declined to give a time frame for when the Fed might begin its so-called exit strategy.

The head of the central bank, appearing before the House Financial Services Committee in his semi-annual testimony on the state of the economy, forecast a relatively sluggish recovery.

Bernanke said the unemployment rate would be higher than preferred levels until at least 2012. But he added that steps taken by the Fed to pump money into the economy have started to pay benefits.

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Obama at an economic summit last month.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) – Here's the challenge facing President-elect Barack Obama as he weighs how to create more jobs: another half-million jobs likely will be lost between now and Inauguration Day.

That's not even counting the 200,000 jobs that economists believe employers trimmed last month, according to estimates from Briefing.com. The October jobs report will be released this Friday.

The unemployment rate is expected to climb to 6.3% from 6.1%, which would match the worst reading of the decade. And economists all seem to agree the worst is yet to come.

At some point next year the unemployment rate is forecast to pass 7%, a level not seen since 1993.

And the job losses of 200,000 or more a month are expected to be the norm, not the exception, in the coming months, as the full impact of the credit crisis is felt more keenly on Main Street.

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