President Barack Obama claimed today that 150,000 jobs will be created or saved by the end of next year with the road-building provisions of the $787-billion economic stimulus that he signed.
"We are seeing shovels hit the ground,'' Obama said in an appearance this morning at the Department of Transportation.
The number of jobs that will be created or saved by the highway construction program will exceed the number of jobs lost during the past three years by the Big-Three automakers, Ford, Chrysler and General Motors, combined, Obama said.
The Obama administration maintains that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will create or save 3.5 million jobs overall by the end of next year.
The president's pitch for the jobs that his plan promises comes as the Department of Labor prepares to release, on Friday, a new picture of joblessness in America. In January, the unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent, the highest level since 1993, up from 7.2 percent the month before. Swamp
