Financial Watch

The pillars of Americans’ financial security — jobs and home values — will stay shaky well into 2011.

The findings of the new Economy Survey, released Monday, point to an economic recovery that will move slowly and fitfully this year and next. As a result, the Federal Reserve will be forced to keep interest rates near zero until at least the final quarter of this year, three-fourths of the economists said.

The new survey, which will be conducted quarterly, compiles forecasts of leading private, corporate and academic economists on a range of indicators, including employment, home prices and inflation. Among the first survey’s key findings:

Sales of new homes in the U.S. unexpectedly fell in February to a record low as blizzards, unemployment and foreclosures depressed the market.

Purchases decreased 2.2 percent to an annual pace of 308,000, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. The median sales price climbed by the most in more than two years.

New-home sales are vying with foreclosure-induced declines in prices for existing homes in an economy where unemployment is forecast to average 9.6 percent this year, close to a 26-year high. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner yesterday said it would take a “long time” to repair the market as the administration takes steps to overhaul real-estate financing and regulation.

Buoyed by an improving economy that has reduced the projected deficit by $3.4 billion, Finance Minister Dwight Duncan will announce new social spending in the provincial budget.

“We’re in the springtime of recovery,” an uncharacteristically ebullient Duncan told reporters Wednesday against the hopeful backdrop of construction at Ryerson University.

“I am pleased to inform you that the 2010 budget will forecast a deficit of $21.3 billion for the year just ending – an improvement of $3.4 billion from the deficit forecast in last fall’s statement,” he said.

The sinking euro and a downgrade of Portugal’s debt put renewed pressure on European leaders to come up with a bailout plan for Greece and stem the government debt crisis undermining their shared currency.

But agreement remained elusive as a Thursday summit approached. Markets increasingly expect any bailout for Greece to involve the International Monetary Fund — and EU governments are discussing whether they would permit that and add financial help from eurozone nations.

Germany is holding back a deal, reluctant to put taxpayer money on the line for Greece. But failure to help an indebted eurozone country would be an admission that Europe can’t halt the crisis in its currency union.