On another matter, the secretary said he wouldn’t be surprised if the 9.5% national unemployment rate ticks up again Friday when the Labor Department releases figures for July.

“It’s possible you’re going to have a couple months where it goes up,” he said, “as people start to come back into the labor force. … That can cause the measured unemployment rate to go up.”

Geithner acknowledged the economy is “not coming back as quickly as we’d like.”