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Washington D.C.–(ENEWSPF)– White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters today discussions with Democratic leadership included talk of extending unemployment insurance for the long-term unemployed.

Gibbs emphasized that this recession was different than previous lulls in the economy, "I think I’ve said this over the past couple days as we’ve gotten into more of this political discussion, I think there is, rightly so, a great frustration in this country with where we are economically, and understanding the depths of the numbers of jobs that were lost, the length of this recession, what it has meant for people on Main Street, what it has meant for -- what we’ve talked about in this, the types of unemployment range much differently than would in a normal recession. You see this affecting not just lower-skilled workers, but higher-skilled, college-educated workers in a way that we haven’t seen in previous recessions."

Admitting that the President was frustrated over the state of the economy, Gibbs said the President is going to go to Michigan on Thursday and talk about investments that have been made in the Recovery Act that are creating jobs through entirely new industries that we’ve brought to this country.

"We’re going to continue to work, as I talked about a minute ago, on ensuring that we have an extension of unemployment insurance to deal with the long-term unemployed; increased lending to small business. All this stuff is going to take some time because it took us quite a bit of time to get into the economic situation that we’re in today." the press secretary said.

Read Gibbs' complete remarks here.