Obama: U.S. economy grows faster than expected

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday that data showing the U.S. economy growing at a faster than expected 5.7 percent pace in the fourth quarter of 2009, demonstrates a "stark improvement" compared to the economic decline of a year ago.

Obama said, "The fact is, we're standing in a very different place than we were just a year ago. Just last year, businesses were cutting 700,000 jobs per month. The markets were plummeting. Many people feared another Great Depression. Today, we've stopped the flood of job losses. We've stabilized the financial system. And we can safely say that we've avoided that looming depression. This morning, we received a report that affirms our progress, and the swift and aggressive actions that made it possible. We learned that the economy grew over the past three months at a rate of 5.7 percent. Now, just to give you perspective there, that's the fastest economic growth in six years, and it's a stark improvement over the rapid and terrible decline that we were experiencing one year ago."