Mr Obama, who on Saturday urged Congress to act “swiftly and boldly” to push through what he named the “American recovery and reinvestment plan”, is due to meet Democratic and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill today to push the fiscal stimulus ahead.

The president-elect, who arrived in Washington last night for the final two weeks before he moves into the White House, said in his weekly radio and YouTube broadcast that failure to push the bill through quickly could result in a “much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment”.

But leaders from both parties yesterday warned that the bill, which could climb as high as $1,000bn, would be unlikely to reach Mr Obama's desk before early February. Steny Hoyer, the Democratic majority leader in the House of Representatives, told Fox News that it would probably only reach Mr Obama by the President's Day recess in early February.