Economy has a "long way to go" for recovery: Obama

“The benchmark I use to measure the strength of our economy is not just whether our GDP is growing, but whether we’re creating jobs, whether families are having an easier time paying their bills, whether our businesses are hiring and doing well,” Obama told business leaders in a speech on the White House grounds.

The welcome news brought cheer to the share market as well, with the Dow Jones index going up by 2.1 percent on Thursday.

According to him, a Commerce Department report says that the economy grew at a 3.5 percent pace in the third quarter, after shrinking for four quarters, and that is a “welcome news and an affirmation that this recession is abating”. But it isn’t enough, added the President.

Recession over?
The official responsibility to proclaim whether the recession has ended or not rests with the National Bureau of Economic Research. It has, however, placed a question mark on the endpoint of recession on its website till now.

The economy has shrunk by 3.8 percent from June and is so far the worst performance in seven decades.

“They’re using the argument that this is a bad time,” Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in an interview. The growth “undercuts that because it shows by the time these things go into effect we will be out of the recession.”

Jobless in U.S.
Since the recession began, the U.S. lost more than 7.2 million jobs. According to the economist’s projection, this figure will increase by 10 percent in 2010.

In spite of the bailout package people have been losing jobs.

“Three million Americans have lost their jobs since the bill was signed,” said Representative John Boehner, the top House Republican. “I’m pleased that the GDP numbers this morning were up. But the question is where are the jobs?”

White House economic adviser Christina Romer said the economic growth is a “necessary first step” toward reducing the highest unemployment in decades.

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said, “Unemployment remains unacceptably high for every person out of work, for every family facing foreclosure, for every small business facing a credit crunch, the recession remains alive and acute.”