Senior White House advisor David Axelrod told Fox's Chris Wallace that American can expect to see results from the stimulus bill soon.
WALLACE: Let's turn to the stimulus plan. Austin Goolsby says it package should be working in six months and one of the signs will be at the end of the year whether unemployment is 8% or 11%. How quickly will we know if the package is working and how should we measure it?
AXELROD: I think there'll be signs quickly. The package will help fund infrastructure programs and other programs that are ready to go around the country but it's going take time for that to -- to show up in the statistics. The president has said it's likely to get worse before it gets better. It is true that without this program, it could be -- it could be much, much worse. And so I don't expect the arrow to bend down by the end of the year, but I do expect the rise in unemployment to be retarded by the things that were done this week.
WALLACE: So does six months sound like a fair marker to begin to see progress?
AXELROD: Well, it depends how you measure progress. As you say, where we see activity as a result of this, absolutely, all over the country you're going to see shovels in the ground. You're going to see construction projects underway. The other thing you're going to see are people not being laid off, police and firefighters and teachers, because states are now going to have funding to forestall those things. I think you'll see an effect of it, but in terms of the overall economy, we're in the worst recession since World War II, and it's going to take -- it took us a long time to get into this mess. It's going to take us a while to get out of.
