WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top White House economic advisor on Thursday said that she saw glimmers of hope that the economy was stabilizing, but it was "hard to know" if a recovery would get underway later this year as expected or take longer.

"We expect the economy to level out in the second half of the year and then begin to recover," Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in prepared remarks.

"Whether the recovery begins later this year, as most private forecasters predict, or takes a bit longer is hard to know," she said in testimony prepared for delivery to the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress.

(Reporting by Alister Bull; Editing by Theodore d'Afflisio)