The White House on Friday pushed the US Congress to pass the massive stimulus plan immediately, as a leading senator hinted a final vote might be possible in the near future.

President Barack Obama named a team of leading economists to help boost the stricken economy which has been in the recession since December 2007.

In a statement, the White House said the board will offer independent advice in regular briefings to the president, vice president and their economic team.

Earlier Friday, the Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent in January, the highest level since 1992, as employers slashed 598,000 jobs.

January's drop, far worse than the 524,000 job losses that economists had expected, followed a revised decline of 577,000 in December. The country has lost a staggering 3.6 million jobs since December 2007, when the recession began. And about one half of these losses occurred in the past three months.

The White House thus urged the Senate to approve the stimulus package immediately.

"These numbers, and the very real suffering of American workers they represent, reinforce the need for bold fiscal action," the White House said in a statement.

On Thursday, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden used speeches at the Energy Department and a Maryland train station, respectively, to urge the Congress to act swiftly.

"We can't delay, and we can't go back to the same worn-out ideas that led us here in the first place," Obama told Energy Department employees.

Biden, speaking at a MARC train station in Laurel, Md., said of the critics, "Maybe they don't understand that the American people voted for and want change now."

A bipartisan group of senators worked on Thursday to cut the cost of the roughly US$935 billion stimulus plan. Many Republican senators said they want the total package's cost down to about US$800 billion.

By early evening, the group had drafted a list of nearly US$90 billion in cuts, including US$40 billion in aid for states, more than US$14 billion for various education programs, US$4.1 billion to make federal buildings energy efficient, and US$1.5 billion for broadband Internet service in rural areas, according to US media reports.

Late Thursday, Obama said in a speech in Williamsburg, Va. that he was willing to accept the US$800 billion plan.

"Our original figure was roughly in the 800 range," he told reporters. "There have been some changes to our framework both in the House and in the Senate, but that's I think the scale that we need to deliver for the American people."

A number of meetings were held between lawmakers on Friday morning, but no deal is available yet.

Democrats, who have 58 of the 100 seats in the Senate, will need at least two Republican votes to avoid procedural roadblocks which could stymie the measure.

The House passed a US$819 billion version of the stimulus plan last week, but no Republican voted in favor of it.

The Senate majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, said late Thursday that he would give the bipartisan group until Friday to reach a deal.

If no deal is reached, he said, he would call for a procedural vote on Sunday aimed at moving to a final vote.

On Friday, Reid said he hoped the Senate would have a final stimulus package to vote on by late Friday afternoon.

"Everyone's going to have to give a little and understand this is a process and we have to move this ball down the court," he said. "I'm cautiously optimistic we can do that."