The U.S. economy likely added jobs at a steady pace in August and the unemployment rate probably fell to a near 7-1/2-year low of 5.2 percent, which could allow a cautious Federal Reserve to consider a September interest rate hike. “We don’t think it will detract from the possibility that the Fed is considering a September rate hike, only if we saw ominous signs of a deterioration elsewhere in the data,” said Sam Bullard, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina.