Obama urges patience despite unemployment numbers

President Barack Obama on Friday urged Americans to remain patient despite news of last month's dismal, double-digit jobless numbers, which he stressed his White House was working hard to correct.

Unemployment surged to 10.2 percent in October, officials announced on Friday, defying economists' earlier estimates that it would not break the all-important 10-point mark and setting a 26-year high.

But the president on Friday said the uptick in Americans without work was to be expected, as unemployment takes time to correct, and he reaffirmed his administration was mulling new investments and tax credits to boost economic recovery.

"Although it will take time and it will take patience, I am confident that our economy will recover, I'm confident that we're moving in the right direction," the president said during a brief speech in the Rose Garden, at which he took no questions. "And I promise that I won't rest until America prospers once again."

Friday's unemployment numbers are likely to reinvigorate the president's Republican critics, who have insisted for months that Democrats' $787-billion stimulus has failed to produce jobs.

While the administration has touted new data that show otherwise, as well as last fiscal quarter's news that the country's gross domestic product was on the upswing, GOPers have decried those measures as insufficient, and they have subsequently labeled the stimulus a failure.

"Since the stimulus bill's been signed into law, more than 3 million Americans have lost their jobs," House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio) said at his own press event this morning. "And the Americans are asking, 'Where are the jobs?' But all they're getting from Democrats here in Washington is more spending and more debt."

Nevertheless, Obama also used his speech Friday morning to announce he had signed an unemployment insurance extension that passed both chambers of Congress this week. The bill, which would offer at least 14 weeks of additional jobless benefits to Americans who have already exhausted their money, also comes equipped with a renewal of a $5,000 home-buyer tax credit.

The president also promised a host of similar programs that would "build on the measure I signed today with further steps to grow our economy in the future," he said.

"To that end my economic team is looking at ideas such as additional investments in our aging roads and bridges, incentives to encourage families and businesses to make buildings more energy efficient, additional tax cuts for businesses to create jobs, additional steps to increase the flow of credit to small businesses, and an aggressive agenda to promote exports and help American manufacturers sell their products around the world," Obama explained.