Obama adviser warns U.S. recession may be worsening

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A senior adviser to U.S. President-elect Barack Obama said on Monday the news that the United States has been in a recession for a year underscored the need for an economic stimulus package.

Lawrence Summers, tapped by Obama to become director of the White House National Economic Council, said the slump may be worsening.

"While the economy has already lost 1.2 million jobs this year, recent economic evidence suggests that the pace of this downturn is accelerating. That is why President-elect Obama has set as his top priority passing an economic recovery plan," Summers said in a statement.

The U.S. arbiter of recessions said on Monday the economy slipped into recession in December 2007 and that the downturn could be the worst since World War Two.

"I think that we've got a ways to go, that this is going to be probably a deep and long recession," Jeffrey Frankel, a Harvard University economist who sits on the National Bureau of Economic Research business cycle dating committee.

Obama has instructed his economic team to come up with recommendations for a stimulus package that would include a mix of middle-class tax cuts and spending on infrastructure projects like roads and bridges and investments in renewable energy.

Obama has not offered a price tag yet for his proposed stimulus but indicated it would be large.

House of Representatives Democrats, meanwhile, are talking of a package in the range of $500 billion.

Summers, a former Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton, said that Obama "does not believe we can wait" to enact the stimulus plan and wants to see Congress agree on a plan soon after lawmakers reconvene in the new year so that it can be ready shortly after Obama takes office on January 20.

(Reporting by Caren Bohan; Editing by James Dalgleish)