US economy improving_美文_趣味英语-查字典英语网

US economy improving

President Barack Obama said that the country was starting to rebound and appealed to lawmakers to extend a payroll-tax cut through the rest of the year to ensure growth continues.

In the latest Gallup tracking poll conducted between Jan 3 and 5, 36 percent of Americans said the economy is getting better versus 59 who said it is worsening. As recently as Dec 1 to 3, 27 percent saw the economy improving against 69 percent seeing it worsening.

Obama's job approval also has been rising in recent months. The Gallup tracking poll showed Obama with a job approval rating of 45 percent between Jan 3 and 5 against monthly averages of 43 percent in December and November and a monthly average of 41 percent in each of the prior three months. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Stocks and Treasury yields fell on Friday after William C. Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said the outlook for unemployment remains "unacceptably high"even though the jobless rate dropped to 8.5 percent, an almost three-year low.

Investors last year favored bonds over stocks, as they sought refuge from the financial turmoil in Europe. US Treasury securities returned 9.8 percent in 2011, their best annual performance since a 14 percent gain in 2008, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data. Investors bought the US securities as a haven, with Europe's debt crisis threatening to infect the region's larger economies.