Obama Vows to Create Private Sector Jobs

Barack Obama today tried to curtail criticism that his stimulus will grossly expand the public workforce, the Washington Post reports. Some 90% of the jobs that the plan intends to create will be in the private sector, many of them in the green-energy industry, he promised in his weekly radio address. “And they’ll be the kind of jobs that won’t just put people to work in the short term,” he added, “but position our economy to lead the world in the long term.”

The address coincided with a report from his economic team, which estimated that a $775 billion stimulus would boost economic growth by 3.7% by the end of next year, creating or saving up to 4.1 million jobs. But that would still leave the unemployment rate at about 7%, the report says, a tiny improvement from the 7.2% the Labor Department reported yesterday.