Obama increases jobs goal

Less than two weeks from taking office, President-elect Barack Obama is increasing his goal for the number of jobs created or saved by an economic recovery plan.

As job losses mount, he's now talking about 4 million jobs, 90 percent of the them in the private sector.

Over the weekend, his transition team made public a report from his top economic advisers detailing his plan. It also posted a video from Christina Romer, his designee for chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

The report estimates 3,675,000 more jobs by the fourth quarter of 2010 than if there were no stimulus package. The advisers say they have assumed the stimulus package would be "slightly" more than the $775 billion upper limit Obama has been talking about because of negotiations with Congress.

The report also acknowledges that direct spending -- rather than individual and business tax cuts that are estimated to make up 40 percent of the package -- "have the largest job bang for the buck."

"However, because there is a limit on how much government investment can be carried out efficiently in a short time frame, and because tax cuts and state relief can be implemented quickly, they are crucial elements of any package aimed at easing economic distress quickly," the report adds.

The jobs that Obama wants to create in energy, infrastructure, health, and education would be slower in coming -- in the fourth quarter of 2009, less than half the jobs would be created in those sectors as the fourth quarter of 2010, the report says.