US economy is growing again: Obama

The US President, Barack Obama, on Tuesday said that the US economy is growing again, but it has a long way to go.

"We have got a long way to go before this recovery is felt in the lives of our neighbors and in all the communities that have lost so much ground in this recession and in years before," Obama said in his speech in Ohio.

"But despite that sobering reality, despite all the naysayers in Washington, who are always looking for the cloud in every silver lining, the fact is our economy is growing again. Last month, we gained 290,000 jobs," he said.

"We gained more jobs last month than any time in four years. And it was the fourth month in a row that we've added jobs and almost all those jobs are in the private sector. Everybody talks about government was doing this, government was doing that. Now, what we did was we encouraged the private sector, gave them the funding, the financing, the support, the infrastructure support in order to invest and get the economy moving again," he said.

Last month also brought the largest increase in manufacturing employment since 1998, the President said.

 "We did not become the greatest economic power that the world has ever known by avoiding problems. The United States of America does not play for second place. We step up. We face our challenges. We compete. And we win. And that's something we should all agree on," he said.

Acknowledging that they still have a long way to go, Obama said: "I know it's still tough. I know a lot of times the future still feels uncertain. I'm not going to stand here and pretend that things are back to normal, or even close to where they need to be. I read too many letters each night from people who are hurting, who are still out of work. So I know things are still tough out there."

Obama said he believes in investing in clean energy economy to create good jobs of the future, building pipe for natural gas, but also building windmills and steel and turbines and advanced batteries for the new generation of electric cars as that's the right thing to do for the economy and for the environment.

"I believe that raising standards in our schools and making college more affordable and upgrading our community colleges is the right thing to do so that every child has a chance to live out their dreams," he said.

"I believe that reforming our health care system to crack down on the worst practices of the insurance companies and giving everybody a decent shot at getting health insurance is the right thing to do," Obama said.