CNNMoney.com
Companies Economy International Corrections Pre-market Trading After-hours Trading Winners/Losers/Actives Bonds Currencies Commodities World Markets Money Magazine Real Estate Taxes Jobs Ask the Expert Money 101 Autos Mutual Funds The Help Desk Loan Center Best Places to Live Ask the Expert Ultimate Guide to Retirement Retirement Calculators Best Funds Ask the Mole Best Places to Retire Big Tech Blog Techland Blog Sectors and Stocks Fortune 500 Techs Tech Talk 100 Best Places to Launch Ultimate Resource Guide Small Biz Makeovers FSB 100 Ask & Answer Fortune 500 Technology Investing Management C-Suite Rankings Main Create Portfolio Edit Portfolio Create Alerts Edit Alerts

Obama reveals job-creation plan

Proposal centers on repairing infrastructure and boosting technology.

EMAIL  |   PRINT  |   SHARE  |   RSS
 
google my aol my msn my yahoo! netvibes
Paste this link into your favorite RSS desktop reader
See all CNNMoney.com RSS FEEDS (close)

obama_nga2.03.jpg

(CNN) -- President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday revealed five parts of his plan to save or create 2.5 million jobs by 2011, and said he will push for immediate action by Congress when he takes office in January.

Obama wants to make public buildings more energy-efficient; repair roads and bridges; modernize schools; increase broadband access; and ensure health care uses the latest technology.

"Our government now pays the highest energy bill in the world," he said in the weekly Democratic Radio Address.

"We need to upgrade our federal buildings by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs. That won't just save you, the American taxpayer, billions of dollars each year. It will put people back to work."

In addition, he said, "It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption. Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online."

"In addition to connecting our libraries and schools to the Internet, we must also ensure that our hospitals are connected to each other through the Internet."

"These are a few parts of the economic recovery plan that I will be rolling out in the coming weeks. When Congress reconvenes in January, I look forward to working with them to pass a plan immediately.

"We won't do it the old Washington way. We won't just throw money at the problem.

"We'll measure progress by the reforms we make and the results we achieve -- by the jobs we create, by the energy we save, by whether America is more competitive in the world," Obama added.

On Friday, the Department of Labor released a report showing the economy shed 533,000 jobs in November -- the largest monthly job loss since December 1974. For the year, job losses now stand at 1.9 million.

The unemployment rate rose to 6.7 percent in November, up from 6.5 percent in October. It is the highest unemployment rate since October 1993.

The report came out as Congress and the White House wrestled with financial bailout requests from the Big Three automakers -- Ford Motor Company (F, Fortune 500), General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) and Chrysler -- whose top executives testified this week on Capitol Hill.

Obama asked Americans to "rise to the moment" to put his plans in place, and said his economic recovery team is working on his proposals.

"We need action -- and action now," he said. To top of page

Features
Markets Last Change
Dow Jones 8,146.52 -36.65 / -0.45%
Nasdaq 1,756.03 3.48 / 0.20%
S&P 500 879.13 -3.55 / -0.40%
10-year Bond 98 16/32 Yield: 3.30%
U.S.Dollar 1 euro = $1.396 0.001
July 10, 2009 4:03 PM ET
CompanyPrice% Change
General Motors Corp 1.16 37.99%
American Intl Group Inc 11.80 24.47%
CIT Group Inc 1.55 -16.66%
YRC Worldwide Inc 1.31 -12.08%
Jul 10 3:56pm ET †
More Galleries
The 10 dumbest iPhone apps The iPhone App Store launched a year ago with 500 applications. Today it has more than 55,000. Some are useful - many are plain stupid. With help from Krapps.com's Alex Miro, we've picked out some of the dumbest. More
New GM's new cars GM is launching a slate of new products. Can they give a lift to the auto giant as it enters a new era? More
Barbie gets a makeover As Barbie celebrates her 50th anniversary, middle age may be her time to shine (again). More

© 2009 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2009 BigCharts.com Inc. All rights reserved. Please see our Terms of Use.
MarketWatch, the MarketWatch logo, and BigCharts are registered trademarks of MarketWatch, Inc.
Intraday data provided by Interactive Data Real-Time Services and subject to the Terms of Use.
Intraday data is at least 20-minutes delayed. All times are ET.
Historical, current end-of-day data, and splits data provided by Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data.
Fundamental data provided by Morningstar, Inc..
SEC Filings data provided by Edgar Online Inc..
Earnings data provided by FactSet CallStreet, LLC.