WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Thursday predicted that unemployment will remain at 9 percent next year, a gloomy scenario for President Barack Obama's re-election campaign.

The bleak figures from the Office of Management and Budget, which also projected overall growth this year at just 1.7 percent, serve as further confirmation of a sputtering economy while dramatizing the challenge Obama will face in making his case for re-election. The 1.7 percent growth rate is a full percentage point less than the administration predicted at the beginning of the year.

The economy promises to be the leading-edge issue of the 2012 White House sweepstakes, and Obama already is facing a host of Republican rivals challenging his financial policies. No president in modern times has won re-election with unemployment as high as 9 percent, and Obama's poll numbers have suffered in recent weeks amid a steady drumbeat of bad economic news.