US President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that the current economic crisis was not as severe as the Great Depression in the 1930s.

"This was a big difficult situation. Now, I think we've got to keep perspective. We're not going through the Great Depression," Obama said in an interview with ABC.

"I know there have been some analogies there but when FDR took over, unemployment at that time was 30 percent," said Obama, noting the figure now was 7.5 percent or 7.6 percent.

Obama also joked that he was "constantly trying to thread the needle" between sounding alarmist.

"We are not just an ordinary recession, we are in a perfect storm of financial problems," he said.

The president warned that there is no easy out for the Wall Street. "I think it is hoping for an easy out on this thing and there is no easy out," Obama said.

"What we've tried to do is to apply some of the tough love that's going to be necessary," Obama said, referring to a new financial bailout package released by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner earlier on Tuesday.

(Xinhua News Agency February 11, 2009)