That was all the more painful, because it followed years of relatively jobless growth for European economies, he noted.
Hence, claims that China is suffering jobless economic growth.
Even slow growth should cut the stock of jobless if productivity growth is sluggish, as seems likely.
Economic news was better than most expected, as existing home sales hit the highest level in almost a year, manufacturing data showed strong growth, and jobless claims declined sharply.
The economy has shown one or two signs of growth: new jobless claims are now just below 400, 000 a week, industrial production is fairly strong and the stockmarket is rallying.
The sceptics insist that growth has been largely jobless and deepened inequality in an already hierarchical society.
Even with the slow healing for the jobs market, the slow pace of economic growth and uncomfortably high jobless rate still weighs on consumer confidence.
Rapid economic growth is required if the newly jobless are to find more productive ways to spend their time than rioting against the government.
Welcome news for a country where 18 months of growth had seemed to leave the jobless figures nailed to the ceiling, and especially for a government whose congressional friends were thumped even if not only because of unemployment in the elections of late October.
The latest unemployment numbers showed modest job growth, with the Labor Department reporting weekly jobless claims down by 2000 last week, to a seasonally adjusted 370, 000.
The recent decline in the jobless rate has been misleading, the result of a surprisingly small growth in the workforce (as discouraged workers drop out) as much as fast job creation.
The growth number, combined with a disappointing read from weekly jobless claims, which rose to 354, 000, comes in the midst of a debate over when and how the Federal Reserve will back off its aggressive stimulus efforts.
Jobless claims held steady, and point to a modest uptick in payroll growth in the May employment report on June 1.
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The survey also highlights the particular retirement challenge facing boomers, who are contemplating exiting the work force just as the worst economy in seven decades left them coping with high jobless rates, tattered home values and painfully low interest rates that stunt the growth of savings.
This seems inconsistent with recent data on profits, income, weekly jobless claims, ISM readings, record low inventories relative to sales and solid consumption growth into July.
Continued growth of 2% will mean his legacy will be the largest number of jobless Americans for the longest period of time since the Great Depression.
However, under pressure from a slow and nearly jobless economic recovery, the Obama administration may be rethinking the role of military outlays in economic growth.
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In this case, he argued, middle- and lower-income families would benefit from the payroll-tax reduction, the extended jobless benefits and other elements of the deal, and that the package overall would stimulate job growth and the economy.
While the jobless rate has fallen since peaking in 2009, it remains far above precrisis levels, amid sluggish growth.
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Things start to look better in 2010, where the Fed expects growth to range between 2.3% and 3.2%, with the jobless rate between 6.5% and 7.3%.
They note that the patchy growth often seen in the early quarters of an economic expansion for instance, the jobless recovery of the early 90s or the double-dip in 2002 is not usually reflected in the pattern of earnings recovery.
The Congressional Budget Office, which lumps the payroll tax cut with extended jobless benefits in its analysis, has warned that eliminating both would cost the economy 0.7 percentage points of growth and 800, 000 jobs in 2013.
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