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Obama bracing for more bad job numbers

Posted by Sarah Harlan - email

(NBC) - President Obama faces a milestone this week: the first anniversary of his election.

The economy is showing signs of improvement, but he's bracing for more bad jobs numbers, which could push the unemployment rate over 10 percent.

A year ago this coming week, Barack Obama was elected president of a nation tumbling into the financial abyss; and without the government's stimulus efforts, he argues, the economy would've been much worse.

"It is easy to forget that it was only several months ago that the economy was shrinking rapidly and many economists feared another Great Depression," Obama said.

This past week brought encouraging news that the economy grew three and a half percent in the third quarter.

Home sales are starting to edge back up, but consumers are afraid to spend, banks have been slow to lend and rising gasoline prices are burning up money that could've fueled growth.

Unemployment is at 9.8 percent and expected to go up again this week with the latest jobs report.

"Americans all around the country continue to ask the question - where are the jobs?" minority leader representative John Boehner (r) said.

Republicans aren't buying the Obama administration's claims that it created or saved 1 million jobs.

"Most of the so-called jobs that have been saved or created are government jobs," Boehner said.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner predicts a recovery, but a choppy one.

"This is a very tough economy," Geithner said. "It's only been three initial months of positive growth. It's going to take some time for unemployment to come down, for jobs to get created again."

He said the stimulus spending is just starting to show results, and he said it's too early to say whether more government spending will be needed.

Secretary Geithner reaffirmed the president's campaign pledge that he won't raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.