Washington ? Though the economy is still struggling, the Federal Reserve is expected to pass up a chance to prod growth by lowering interest rates at its meeting today.

But Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and his colleagues may send a strong signal that lower rates are still possible if the economy does not pick up.

The wait-and-see approach might seem odd given the latest jobs report which showed the unemployment rate returning to an 8 year high of 6 percent in April. Job losses now top 500,000 over the past three months, a layoff level usually associated with recessions.

But analysts said Monday that the bad news on jobs in April had to be balanced against more recent statistics indicating things were getting better since U.S. tanks rolled into Baghdad. Consumer confidence is rising and oil prices falling.

“The victory in Iraq has brought oil prices way down. Consumer confidence has improved, and we have had a pretty good rally in the stock market,” said Lyle Gramley, senior economic adviser for Schwab Washington Research Group and a former Fed board member. “All of these things would suggest a pickup in the economy in the latter half of this year.”

Given the improved prospects, many analysts expected that the Federal Open Market Committee, the group of Fed board members and regional bank presidents who meet eight times a year to set interest rates, will leave rates unchanged for a fourth-straight meeting.

The central bank last cut rates on Nov. 6 when it reduced its target for the federal funds rate, the interest rates that banks charge each other, to a 41-year low of 1.25 percent.

But if the central bank leaves rates unchanged again, the Fed is likely to signal that it is still prepared to cut rates further should the economy not rebound as expected, analysts said. Fed officials could do that by stating in the “balance of risks” portion of their statement that the biggest threat going forward was economic weakness.

After the last meeting on March 18, the Fed said that “unusually large uncertainties clouding the geopolitical situation” made it impossible for them to assess the greatest risks facing the economy at that moment.

Analysts expecting the Fed to shift its statement toward economic weakness based that view in part on Greenspan’s comments last week to the House Financial Services Committee.

“Chairman Greenspan seemed to be saying that the Fed thinks things are going to improve now that the war is over, and if they don’t improve, then the Fed will cut rates again,” said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s in New York.

Expectations of a rate cut at the next meeting on June 24 were fueled by Greenspan’s comments last week noting that “with price inflation already at a low level, substantial further disinflation would be an unwelcome development.”

Many analysts viewed these remarks as indicating the Fed continues to be on guard to make sure that the United States does not encounter a bout of deflation like that which has added to the economic woes of Japan.