Factbox: Obama rolls out more executive office measures

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, sidestepping Republicans in Congress who have thwarted his $447 billion jobs plan, has invoked his executive powers to help homeowners, students and veterans struggling to find work.

Touring the country with the slogan that Americans can't wait for lawmakers to act, he already has rolled out a series of initiatives and the White House promises a steady stream of additional measures for months to come.

On Monday, Obama signed an executive order the White House said was aimed at tackling a mounting shortage of life-saving medicines, including cancer treatments.

The administration has declined to predict how many jobs any of these initiatives will create, with the exception of help for veterans, where the goal was a modest 8,000 in three years. Critics say the moves are political gimmickry that lack economic heft and will do very little to boost hiring.

Following are a list of the actions taken so far:

FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION

Obama on Monday signed an executive order that directs the Food and Drug Administration to combat a shortage of vital drugs by doing more extensive reporting of where shortages occur, and speed up regulatory reviews to ease or prevent shortages in the first place.

He also ordered the FDA to work with the Department of Justice to determine if shortages have led to illegal price gouging or stockpiling of potentially life-saving treatments.

But the new order is unlikely to address the underlying causes of the recent rise in drug shortages, as regulators do not fully understand why they are occurring.

HOMEOWNERS

On October 24, the White House announced steps to make it easier for some homeowners to refinance their mortgages, allowing credit-worthy borrowers to reduce their payments thanks to currently low interest rates. The changes eliminate some fees and increase competition for refinancing business.

The Obama administration also extended the length of time unemployed borrowers can suspend mortgage payments without being foreclosed to 12 months from four months, and simplified the process for distressed borrowers to get help with loans.

The moves could help up to 1 million homeowners, although past administration efforts to aid significant numbers of borrowers in the housing market have fallen short.

STUDENTS

On October 25, Obama unveiled a "pay as you earn" proposal to help reduce monthly student loan payments for some college graduates, a slice of the American voting public who helped put him into the White House in 2008.

Accelerating a program that starts in 2014, borrowers from next year will be able to reduce monthly student loan payments to 10 percent of their discretionary income, and debt balances will be forgiven after 20 years of payments.

Current U.S. law allows borrowers to limit their loan payments to 15 percent of discretionary income and forgives all remaining debt after 25 years. The White House says this will help around 1.6 million students.

Obama also used an executive order to allow students to consolidate federal college debt into a single monthly payment, and offer a 0.5 percentage point cut in the monthly interest rate on that debt. Up to six million students could benefit from this initiative.

These initiatives might only reach a small portion of the 36 million Americans who have federal student debt, but they do aim policy toward a major part of the nation's credit problem.

VETERANS

On October 25, Obama challenged community health centers to hire 8,000 veterans -- including former military medics -- over the next three years. The White House also asked health centers to start reporting on the number of veterans they employ.

It also announced an initiative to help train veterans for careers as physician assistants, a fast-track to get military medics into the civilian health field. Physician assistants work in emergency care, counseling and follow-up care.

Unemployment among veterans who have served since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States stands at 235,000, or 11.7 percent, versus a national jobless rate in September of 9.1 percent. More veterans are expected to enter the labor force after Obama decided to pull the remaining 40,000 U.S. troops home from Iraq by the end of the year.

RESEARCH AND EXPORTS

Obama issued a memorandum to instruct federal agencies to speed up public-private research partnerships, help agencies partner with the private sector, and devise a five-year plan to keep closer track of progress and patent creation.

He also issued a second memo to create a new website called BusinessUSA, mainly aimed at small businesses, to aid export-hungry firms find information on federal programs.

Obama wants to double U.S. exports by the end of 2014 and is on track to reach that goal.

(Reporting by Alister Bull, Deborah Charles and Laura MacInnis; Editing by Bill Trott)