Biden: White House to ‘ramp up’ economic recovery

WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden said Friday the White House plans to “ramp up” the pace of its economic recovery efforts as the government reported the unemployment rate jumped to its highest level in over a quarter-century.

Addressing reporters, Biden said the latest jobs report reflects how millions of Americans are still hurting, but he also said there were “some signs of hope today.”

The jobless rate in May shot up from 8.9 percent to 9.4 percent and 345,000 more jobs were slashed from company payrolls.

Yet economists said they had expected even larger jobs cuts, and the smaller numbers offered a sign that the worst recession in decades is starting to give way. Biden tempered his hopeful words by saying that the White House is not satisfied just because the report is less gloomy than expected.

The mission remains to create jobs, he said.

“Let me be very clear: A lower job-rate loss is not our goal,” Biden said. “‘Less bad’ is not how we’re going to measure success.”

Biden, Obama’s point person in overseeing the massive $787 billion economic stimulus recovery plan, has defended the pace of spending as critics have complained that money for roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects has been slow to arrive.

On Monday, Biden said, he will join Obama in announcing plans to “ramp up” implementation of the stimulus program over the summer but offered no details. When a reporter asked him, Biden smiled and said that will happen Monday.

Biden said there were discernible signs that the efforts by Congress and the White House are helping, citing a big drop in construction unemployment. Again, though, he balanced any optimism by cautioning that there will be “more setbacks on the road before we get finally to recovery.”

“To sum it up: Encouraging signs, but a long, long way to go,” the vice president said.

On Capitol Hill, some Republicans blasted that comment as out-of-touch.

“The vice president should not use the word ‘encouraging’ even remotely in conjunction with a 9.4 percent unemployment rate,” said Antonia Ferrier, spokeswoman for House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio. “There’s nothing encouraging about it to struggling families and workers who have lost jobs and seen their incomes decline.”

Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost a net total of 6 million jobs.

Biden spoke at the start of an economic briefing with Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, Biden’s chief economist.