Obama plans $12 billion for job training

WARREN, Mich. - As the unemployment rate continues to climb despite his efforts to stop it, President Obama yesterday proposed a $12-billion federal investment in the nation's two-year colleges to help train millions of unemployed people for jobs he says will be created once the economy turns around.

Obama flew to Michigan, a state with the worst unemployment rate in the country, at 14.1 percent, to make the announcement at Macomb Community College.

He called the $12-billion in spending over the next decade "the most significant down payment" yet toward achieving his goal of having the highest college graduation rate of any nation.

Speaking outdoors in his shirt sleeves, Obama said jobs requiring at least an associate's degree are expected to grow twice as fast as those where college education is not required.

"We will not fill those jobs, or keep those jobs on our shores, without the training offered by community colleges," Obama said.

"Community colleges are an undervalued asset in our country," he said.

Earlier yesterday in Washington, the president said he expected the unemployment rate to "tick up" over the next several months and it's "not yet clear" how quickly the job market will respond as the economy recovers.

"This has been a more severe recession than we've seen since the Great Depression," Obama said at the White House.

The national unemployment rate was 9.5 percent in June, the highest since August 1983. Obama previously said he expected the jobless rate to hit 10 percent or higher by the end of the year.

The president said after the White House meeting that there are signs the economy is recovering from the worst recession in half a century, including stabilization in financial markets and the freeing up of credit.

The "single biggest challenge" for the U.S. and the rest of the world is "how do we generate enough jobs that pay good wages" to keep up with population growth, Obama said. The president said his priorities of revamping the health-care system and spending more on alternative energy and education will help job creation.

Republican lawmakers are stepping up their criticism of Obama's economic policies, including the $787-billion stimulus legislation the administration pushed through Congress in February.

"The American people now have lost almost two million jobs since this bill was signed into law and they continue to ask where are the jobs?" House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio told reporters at the Capitol.