(dpa) - US President Barack Obama's administration hit back Friday at critics of its economic policies, insisting the United States is beginning to recover from a devastating recession, reported the dpa. While there have been some signs of a turnaround in the world's largest economy, some groups have become restless as unemployment continues to rise far above the White House's own forecasts from earlier this year. "We have walked some substantial distance back from the abyss," Larry Summers, the president's chief economic adviser, said in a speech before the Washington-based Peterson Institute of International Economics. "Substantial progress has been made in rescuing the economy from the risk of economic collapse that looked all too real 6 months ago," Summers said. An unexpected jump in job losses in June pushed the country's unemployment rate to 9.5 per cent, its highest level in a quarter- century. Obama in January said his economic prescriptions would keep the jobless rate below 8.5 per cent. Republicans have charged that Obama's 787-billion-dollar economic stimulus plan has already failed, while some economists have suggested a second stimulus package could be necessary. The White House has said its prescriptions must be given more time to work. Unemployment "is obviously a major area of concern," Summers said. "But contrary to a significant amount of commentary, this does not provide a basis for concluding that the Recovery Act is falling short of its goals." But Summers conceded that the real effects of the stimulus - especially on unemployment - would only really be felt in 2010. The US economy is mired in a 19-month recession, its longest since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
