WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Members of the Federal Open Market Committee say they expect the economy to begin to grow later this year, but cautioned that any recovery would be gradual.

How gradual? How about five or six years before the economy is back on even keel?

The FOMC released the minutes of its April 28-29 meeting on Wednesday. The good news: Policymakers said the already-small risk of a truly calamitous depression had gotten even smaller. The bad news: They significantly reduced their forecasts for how the economy would mostly likely to perform this year and over the next two years. See full story.

Although sales and production are expected to begin to grow slowly this year, unemployment is expected to keep rising and stay high for years. Just as occurred after the 1991 and 2001 recessions, U.S. gross domestic product could turn higher long before the unemployment rate begins to fall.

At least one member of the committee expected the unemployment rate at the end of 2011 to be 9%, which is even higher than the 8.9% we saw in April. At least one member said the unemployment rate would hit 10% later this year, although the "central tendency" of the full committee wasn't quite so dire, with an expected jobless rate of "just" 9.2% to 9.6% in the fourth quarter.

Most members of the committee -- the 12 Fed bank presidents and the six Fed governors -- "indicated they expected the economy to take five or six years to converge to a longer-run path" consistent with the Fed's goals of maximum employment and price stability, the minutes said.

(In the long run, the Fed thinks the economy can grow at a 2.5% pace, with unemployment at about 5% and inflation at 2%.)

What's more, "several" members thought full recovery "would take longer" than five or six years.

Talk about a lost decade!

--Rex Nutting, Washington bureau chief