Economy, Obama Administration | featured news

The U.S. economy grew at a 2.7 percent annual rate from July through September, much faster than first thought. The strength may fade in the final months of the year if Congress and the Obama administration fail to reach a budget deal.

When conspiracists suggested Friday that the Obama administration had engineered a sharp drop in unemployment to aid President Barack Obama's re-election, the response was swift. Career government officials, economists and even some Mitt Romney supporters issued a collective sigh. The staffers who compute the U.S. unemployment rate work in an agency of the Labor Department. Officials who have overseen the work say it's prepared under tight security with no White House input or supervision.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration is weighing the circumstances that could warrant tapping the nation's strategic oil reserve, aware that supply disruptions from Iran could harm the global economy, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Friday.

Rising wages in developing countries and other factors have made keeping workers in the United States a much more viable option, the Obama administration argues.

The Obama administration won a reprieve this week from some particularly scary economic news that had been projected to occur around around Halloween. The news: The ever-escalating national debt will hit and then surpass the size of the entire U.S. economy -- an ignominious distinction previously achieved by the likes of Japan, Italy and Greece.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner -- and other White House officials -- are challenging a new book that slams President Obama's economic t ...

The latest evidence on the economy suggests that the tense standoff between Congress and the Obama administration over raising the debt ceiling is coming at a terrible time — not in a period of robust or even passable growth, but at a time the U.S. economy is barely eking out any expansion at all.

Administration estimates record-setting amount will drop to $1.3 trillion in 2011; Obama's proposed $3.8 trillion budget focuses on economy.

Growing discontent over the economy, recovery efforts turn into a wave of criticism and outright anger directed at the administration.

WASHINGTON — Despite persistently high unemployment, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Friday the Obama administration's economic stimulus plan is on the "expected path."

"There's been substantial improvements in arresting what was the worst recession globally we've seen in generations," Geithner told lawmakers Friday.