Julianna.

Q    Thank you, Mr. President.  Back in July, your budget office’s Mid-Session Review forecast that unemployment would be 7.7 percent in the second -- in the fourth quarter of 2012.  Will this package deal lower that projected rate?  And also, is it going to do more to boost growth and create jobs than your Recovery Act?

THE PRESIDENT:  This is not as significant a boost to the economy as the Recovery Act was, but we’re in a different situation now.  I mean, when the Recovery Act passed, we were looking at a potential Great Depression and we might have seen unemployment go up to 15 percent, 20 percent -- we don’t know.  In combination with the work we did in stabilizing¹ the financial system, the work that the Federal Reserve did, that’s behind us now.  We don’t have the danger of a double-dip recession.

What we have is a situation in which the economy, although growing, although company profits are up, although we are seeing some job growth in the private sector², the economy is not growing fast enough to drive down the unemployment rate given the 8 million jobs that were lost before I came into office and just as I was coming into office.

So what this package does is provide an additional boost that is substantially more significant than I think most economic forecasters had expected.  And in fact, you’ve already seen some, just over the last 24 hours, suggest that we may see faster growth and more job growth as a consequence of this package.  I think the payroll³ tax holiday will have an impact.  Unemployment insurance probably has the biggest impact in terms of making sure that the recovery that we have continues and perhaps at a faster pace.

So, overall, every economist⁴ I’ve talked to suggests that this will help economic growth and this will help job growth over the next several months.  And that is the main criteria⁵（标准，条件） by which I made this decision.

Look, this is something that I think everybody has to remember, and I would speak especially to my fellow Democrats⁶ who I think rightly are passionate⁷ about middle-class families, working families, low-income families who are having the toughest time in this economy.

The single most important jobs program we can put in place is a growing economy.  The single most important anti-poverty program we can put in place is making sure folks have jobs and the economy is growing.

We can do a whole bunch of other stuff, but if the economy is not growing, if the private sector is not hiring faster than it’s currently hiring, then we are going to continue to have problems no matter how many programs we put into place.

And that’s why, when I look at what our options were, for us to have another three, four, five months of uncertainty⁸, not only would that have a direct impact on the people who see their paychecks get smaller, not only would that have a direct impact on people who are unemployed⁹ and literally¹⁰ depend on unemployment insurance to pay the bills or keep their home or keep their car, but in terms of macroeconomics, the overall health of the economy, that would have been a damaging thing.

Q    Just to follow up.  The unemployment rate was just north of 8 percent when the last Recovery Act was put in place.  It’s now 9.8 percent.  Are you prepared to say today that the unemployment rate is going to go down as a result of this package?

THE PRESIDENT:  My expectation is that the unemployment rate is going to be going down because the economy is growing.  And even though it’s growing more slowly that I’d like, it’s still growing.

Now, how fast it’s going to go down, how quickly the economy is going to grow, when are private sector businesses going to start making the investments in plant and equipment and actually start hiring people again?  There are a lot of economists¹¹ out there who have been struggling with that question.

So I’m not going to make a prediction.  What I can say with confidence is that this package will help strengthen the economy -- will help strengthen the recovery.  That I’m confident about.