President Barack Obama has offered a $447 billion jobs plan that includes an expansion of the payroll-tax cuts in 2012 and an extension of the unemployment benefits. It faces resistance in the House of Representatives, where Republicans hold the majority and oppose the tax increases Obama proposed to pay for the program.
"We're still laboring under the fallout from the bursting of the housing and credit bubble," Jan Hatzius, chief economist for Goldman Sachs in New York, told Bloomberg Television on Oct. 7. "In the aftermath of that, unfortunately, you're often in a weak position for a long time."