WAOW - Newsline 9, Wausau News, Weather, SportsObama, lawmakers target bailout fund for jobs bill
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama takes his defense of the economy on the road Friday and despite limited options due to big budget deficits, he's warming to the possibility of a job-boosting bill.
Obama has scheduled appearances Friday in Pennsylvania to showcase innovative businesses following Thursday's White House jobs forum.
The president is mindful of growing anxiety about federal deficits and says it is primarily up to the private sector to create large numbers of new jobs.
But congressional Democrats are eyeing up to $70 billion in unspent financial bailout money to use for infrastructure projects and saving public employee jobs.
November's unemployment figures are due out this morning and the jobs picture is expected to remain bleak.
The country is technically out of recession but analysts don't think it's come far enough to have a positive impact on unemployment.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters say they expect the Labor Department to announce Friday that November unemployment was unchanged from October at 10.2%.
They also expect the Labor Department will report that employers cut a net total of 130,000 jobs in November.
That's an improvement from 190,000 the previous month.
Two economic reports Thursday gave some economists hope that employers will step up hiring early next year and also that the economy will start adding jobs in the first quarter.
But the unemployment rate may still rise well into 2010.
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