In the Obama family, kids come first.

At least they did on Friday.

According to MSNBC.com, President-elect Barack Obama attended a parent-teacher conference at his daughters' school.

Then, he held his first news conference since his victory in Tuesday's election.

The voters said the sorry state of the nation's economy was the number one issue on their minds as they went to the polls.

At Friday's news conference in Chicago, Mr. Obama promised "to act swiftly to resolve it."

"Immediately after I become president, I will confront this economic crisis head-on, by taking all necessary steps to ease the credit crisis, help hardworking families and restore growth and prosperity," he told reporters.

The "credit crisis" began in September, after several large US financial institutions collapsed or were saved by mergers and government bailouts. Some banks were so strapped for cash and so concerned about not being paid back that they stopped making loans altogether car loans, home loans, business loans, college loans, you name it.

To help ease the crisis, Mr. Obama called on Congress to pass another economic stimulus package, in addition to the one it passed earlier this year.

According to CNN, he plans to make the second package his first priority after he takes office January 20th, if Congress doesn't approve it before then.

(Under the first stimulus package, many middle-class and working-class Americans received several-hundred dollars from the federal government. The goal was to stimulate the economy by giving people money to spend.)

"We need a rescue plan for the middle class that invests in immediate efforts to create jobs and provides relief to families that are watching their paychecks shrink and their life savings disappear," Mr. Obama said.

There was more bad economic news from the auto industry Friday. General Motors reported a $2 -billion-dollar loss in this year's third quarter (July through September).

And Ford reported that it had a rough third quarter as well.

At his news conference, Mr. Obama called the US auto industry "the backbone of American manufacturing."

And he told reporters his economic advisers would focus on ways to help the industry rebound.

Even bigger than the bad news from the auto industry was word on Friday that the US unemployment rate jumped to 6.5% in October the highest rate in years.

"The 240,000 jobs lost in October marks the 10th consecutive month that our economy has shed jobs," Mr. Obama said. "In total, we've lost nearly 1.2 million jobs this year, and more than 10 million Americans are now unemployed. Tens of millions of families are struggling to figure out how to pay the bills and stay in their homes."

Mr. Obama was quick to point out that he isn't the president just yet.

He's being careful not to step on President Bush's toes while Mr. Bush is still in office.

"We only have one president at a time," Mr. Obama said.

But according to CNN, the Bush administration is now working with the Obama transition team to make sure "the next president and his team can hit the ground running," as Mr. Bush said.

On Friday, Mr. Obama called the current economic situation "the greatest economic challenge of our lifetime."

"I do not underestimate the enormity of the task that lies ahead," he said. "Some of the choices we make will be difficult. It is not going to be quick or easy to dig ourselves out of the hole we're in.

"(But) I'm confident a new president can have an enormous impact," he said.