Obama Pushes Economic Plan, Saying It Can't Wait

Jobless Rate Highest in 15 Years

The unemployment rate in November 2008 -- the last month the federal government released statistics -- was 6.7 percent, the highest in 15 years.

In his weekly radio address Saturday, Obama called creating 3 million new jobs "the No. 1 goal of my plan" and said 80 percent of them would be in the private sector. "There is a real difference between creating 3 million new jobs and creating or preserving 3 million jobs," Robert Reich, treasury secretary under President Clinton, told ABCNews.com. "The economy lost 1.9 million jobs in 2008, and if nothing is done we'll probably lose 2 million or more in 2009. The stimulus plan could conceivably prevent a lot of that from happening."

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Speaking Saturday, Obama did not give a time frame in which the new jobs would be created, but in December he set a goal of creating or saving 3 million jobs in two years.

"Creating and preserving jobs is a more realistic goal than just creating them and it depends on the time frame. Something needs to be done to stop the erosion in 2009," said Reich who will testify about the unemployment rate Wednesday on Capitol Hill.

In 2009, Reich said, a goal of creating or saving a total of 1.5 million jobs was reasonable, but employment rates were contingent more on stimulating the economy back to health than establishing jobs programs.

"Realistically," he said, "instead of 2.5 million jobs lost in 2009, you lose 1.5 million, so that's 1 million there. If we create new jobs net half a million, that's a total of 1.5 million."

During the presidential campaign -- before the scope of the unemployment crisis was known -- Obama pledged to invest $150 billion in 10 years to create about 5 million "new green jobs" in industries that will produce the next generation of alternative fuels, plug-in hybrid automobiles and a power grid.

An aide to the Obama transition told ABCNews.com that some of the 3 million jobs would come from those 5 million green jobs.

"The 5 million green jobs [are] over a longer time horizon," the transition aide said. "So there's overlap -- some of the 3 million would be green jobs that count towards the 5 million green jobs. But they are certainly not additive."