The U.S. economy will grow this year, but not fast enough to make a dent in unemployment.

That’s the forecast from the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, which expects American businesses to create an average of 95,000 jobs per month, hardly enough to keep up with the number of people entering the work force and far short of the hiring pace needed to upgrade what has been a jobless recovery.

The Obama administration today sent Congress the annual Economic Report of the President, a document more political than economic in nature. It included plugs for the president’s energy and health care goals, arguments for how much the stimulus measures of 2009 prevented further financial disaster and the White House’s latest reminder to Americans that the roots of the financial crisis and generation-high employment hail from the previous administration.

But most striking at a time when unemployment remains the most intractable U.S. political issue is the group’s acknowledgment that the situation won’t get much better before the midterm elections in the fall.

Gross domestic product, the total production of U.S. goods and services, is expected to expand by 3 percent when adjusted for inflation. That’s just slightly stronger than its estimated sustainable rate of growth with the current number of employed workers and thus not enough to substantially reduce unemployment. And the council notes that as some so-called discouraged workers — people not counted in the employment tally because they gave up looking for work — return to the labor force, the unemployment rate could even rise from the current 9.7 percent.

“It will take a prolonged and robust GDP expansion to eliminate the large jobs deficit that has opened up over the course of the recession,” the report says. “Only when the unemployment rate has returned to normal levels and families are once again secure in their jobs, homes, and savings will this terrible recession truly be over.”

The report came the same day as the latest discouraging data on weekly claims for unemployment insurance. The Labor Department said the four-week moving average of jobless claims — a less volatile figure than the weekly number — was at 468,500, down 1,000 from the previous report but still indicative of an ailing labor market. Most economists consider 300,000 weekly jobless claims a rate consistent with steady employment.

News about the nation’s credit markets was equally grim for the employment outlook.

The Congressional Oversight Panel, tasked with overseeing the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, said losses on commercial real estate loans pose a potentially crippling effect on about 3,000 community banks that are a key source of funding for small businesses — and a key source of hope for the Obama administration’s economic planners.

Real-estate loans for retailers, manufacturers, hotels, white-collar offices and apartment managers totaling about $1.4 trillion require refinancing from next year through 2014, but nearly half of those loans are “underwater,” with the outstanding loan now worth more than the actual property, the panel said.

“A significant wave of commercial mortgage defaults would trigger economic damage that could touch the lives of nearly every American,” the panel said. The large-scale failure of commercial properties can in turn lead to the failure of banks. “Because community banks play a critical role in financing the small businesses that could help the American economy create new jobs, their widespread failure could disrupt local communities, undermine the economic recovery and extend an already painful recession.”

The White House report includes the administration’s now-familiar prescription for creating jobs, including government backing for community-bank loans for small businesses that hire. It would also push for tax incentives for companies that increase their payrolls, more help for the long-term unemployed, more funds to build roads, bridges and other infrastructure, and one of President Barack Obama’s long-term priorities, incentives for families to make their homes more energy-efficient.

A bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate today would take similar steps, extending unemployment benefits and some tax breaks while creating a $13 billion payroll tax credit for firms that hire people without jobs.

The White House does expect the employment situation to improve in 2011, predicting an average rate of 190,000 new jobs created each month, and even better progress in 2012. But economic forecasting has been a mug’s game in these tumultuous times, and one of the only certainties about employment for now is that it will be one of the biggest political issues come November.