The White House today defended President Barack Obama's economic policies, saying that because of them, the country had stepped back from an economic abyss.
"Thanks largely to the Recovery Act, alongside an aggressive financial stabilisation plan and a program to keep responsible homeowners in their homes, we have walked a substantial distance back from the economic abyss and are on the path toward economic recovery," Lawrence Summers, director of the White House's National Economic Council, said in a letter to Congressman John Boehner, the Republican House Minority Leader.
The law called for spending $787 billion to stimulate the shrinking US economy.
Summers said the country had seen "a substantial change" in the trend of job loss.
In the third quarter of 2009, the economy lost jobs at an average monthly rate of 2,56,000 — still high, but nearly a third of the pace of job loss the economy was experiencing two quarters ago, he noted.
"The president has been clear that he will not be satisfied until our economy returns to robust job growth," Summers wrote. "The significant reduction in the pace of job loss over the last six months is an essential first step in that direction."