A US administration official told lawmakers Wednesday there is no effort underway to launch a new economic stimulus, quashing speculation that had been growing in recent days.
"No one in the administration is talking about a second stimulus at this point," Rob Nabors, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, told a House of Representatives hearing.
"What we are focused on right now is implementing the Recovery Act that Congress has already passed, and doing the best that we can with the dollars that you've entrusted us with. So, that's what our focus is right now."
The comments came a day after a top economic adviser to Obama, Laura Tyson, said in Singapore that the United States may need a second stimulus package focused on infrastructure projects to put the world's richest economy firmly on the path to recovery.
Tyson, speaking at the Nomura Asia Equity Forum in Singapore, said it was too early to quantify the size of a second package, adding that "we'll have a much better idea towards the end of the year."
The renewed talk about a new round of stimulus came amid growing concerns that the program passed by lawmakers earlier this year -- worth some 787 billion dollars -- is moving too slowly and failing to stem the rise in unemployment, which could deepen the recession.
The latest official data showed US job losses surged to 467,000 in June, pushing the unemployment rate to a new 26-year high of 9.5 percent.
The Labor Department report, seen as one of the best indicators of economic momentum, reversed the improvement seen last month when job losses fell to a revised 322,000.
But Nabors said that the economic stimulus did help save or create jobs as intended.
"Based on the last estimate that we have done, the Recovery Act created 160,000 jobs," he told lawmakers.
"We're not happy with the unemployment number," he commented, but indicated that "we would look back at the job loss that we saw in the first quarter, which was approaching 700,000 jobs a month, and look at where we are right now."
"We believe the stimulus has had the impact that we predicted, which is job creation," he said.
