WASHINGTON -- Standing before a nation on an economic precipice, President Barack Obama warned anxious Americans Tuesday night the U.S. faces a dire "day of reckoning" but can emerge ever stronger by pulling together, sharing sacrifices and confronting hard choices head-on.

Obama asked worried Americans to pull together and declared reassuringly that the U.S. "will emerge stronger than before." The president tried to balance candor with can-do in his first address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night.

He said both political parties must sacrifice on favored programs while uniting behind his campaign promises to build better schools, expand health care coverage and move the nation to "greener" fuel use.

"Tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before," he said, according to excerpts released by the White House in advance of his speech.

Just five weeks after his inauguration, Obama was set to address an ebullient Democratic congressional majority and an embattled but reinvigorated GOP minority as well as millions of anxious viewers at home as a popular leader wielding significant clout to advance his agenda. Despite the nation's economic worries and the lack of support for his plans from all but a few Republican lawmakers, Obama enjoys strong approval ratings across the nation.

But he spoke in the House as bad economic news continues to pile up. Some 3.6 million jobs have disappeared so far in the deepening recession, which now ranks as the biggest job destroyer in the post-World War II period. Americans have lost trillions of dollars in retirement, college and savings accounts, with the stock market falling nearly half from its peak of 16 months ago.

And new polls -- some with his public support rising higher and others with it dropping - show that the political climate can be as precarious as the economic one. Aware that his and his party's fortunes will suffer if he cannot right the economic picture, Obama sought to blend the kind of grim honesty that has become his trademark since taking office with a greater emphasis on optimism.

"Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure," he said. "What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face and take responsibility for our future once more."

The central argument of his speech was that his still-unfolding economic revival plan has room for -- and even demands - -simultaneous action on a broader, expensive agenda including helping the millions without health insurance, improving education and switching the U.S. to greater dependence on alternative energy sources. This is the big lift of his young presidency: bringing the public behind what are sure to be enormous outlays on contentious issues.

His hope was to begin to persuade the country that those longer-term items on his presidential agenda are as important to the nation's economic well-being as unchoking credit and turning around unemployment numbers.

"The only way this century will be another American century is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil and the high cost of health care, the schools that aren't preparing our children and the mountain of debt they stand to inherit. That is our responsibility," Obama said.

New in office, he wasn't charged with producing a formal State of the Union status report. But for all intents and purposes, that's what it was: a night for the president to sketch out his priorities in a setting unmatched the rest of the year.

Obama's speech comes a day after the Dow and Standard & Poor's 500 index fell to lows not seen in a decade. At 7,114, the Dow Jones industrial average Monday tumbled 251 points to its lowest close since Oct. 28, 1997. The S&P had its lowest close since April 11, 1997. It fell nearly 27 points to 743.

Stocks rebounded on Tuesday though, with the Dow gaining 236 points to reach 7,350. The S&P 500 index finished 29 points up at 773, and the Nasdaq improved 54 points to close at 1,441.