Romer: Growth 'solid' but not fast enough

WASHINGTON, July 30 (UPI) -- White House economic adviser Christina Romer said Friday the U.S. economy was not growing fast enough to counter high unemployment.

"Growth is below the rapid rate of increase needed to bring the unemployment rate down quickly," Romer said in a statement, referring to Friday's advanced estimate of the second quarter's gross domestic product.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis said GDP growth in the second quarter was 2.4 percent, slightly less than expected.

Romer, chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers, called the expansion that began in the third quarter of 2009 a "solid rate of growth," which has averaged above 3 percent for the first six months of the year.

The average rose as the government raised its 2.7 percent GDP growth estimate for the first quarter to 3.7 percent.

"Moderate, sustained GDP growth is a vast improvement over the terrible declines in GDP of late 2008 and early 2009, and reassuring given the turbulence in financial markets following debt problems in Europe," Romer said.

Revisions also indicate the downturn was worse than previously known (with the GDP in the third and fourth quarters of 2008 revised lower), making the recession the deepest since 1947, she said.