Obama: Stimulus Plan can Add, Save up to 4 Million Jobs

President-elect Barack Obama said on Saturday an analysis of his stimulus proposals shows that up to 4 million U.S. jobs could be saved or created by 2010, nearly 90 percent of them in the private sector. Obama had previously said his estimated $800 billion plan to lift the country out of a yearlong recession would create or save 3 million jobs, but the new analysis showed that number would range between 3 million and 4 million. The analysis was submitted by the head of Obama's council of economic advisers, Christina Romer, and Vice President-elect Joe Biden's chief economic adviser, Jared Bernstein. It came just after official figures showed U.S. employers slashed more than half a million jobs from their payrolls in December, pushing the unemployment rate to 7.2 percent and bringing the number of jobs lost last year to 2.6 million -- the most since 1945. Obama said the report showed the recovery plan will also put nearly 400,000 people back to work repairing infrastructure and laying down miles of broadband lines.