Obama on unemployment:

Obama Says U.S. Jobless Rate to Reach 10% This Year

June 16 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama said the U.S. unemployment rate will reach 10 percent this year, even as the economy begins to emerge from the recession.

“You’re starting to see the engines of the economy turn,” Obama said today in an interview with Bloomberg Television at the White House. “It’s going to take a long time — we had a huge de-leveraging that took place.”

Obama acknowledged that unemployment lines may keep growing despite government efforts to boost economic growth, saying he’s confident an expansion will begin “shortly.” His outlook mirrors the forecasts of private economists who predict a jobless rate of 10 percent — a level unseen since 1983 — by the final three months of the year.

This would be the same Obama who assumed a 4% GDP growth rate in his budget, and thought that his stimulus plan would keep unemployment at 8%.