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Before he accepted Barack Obama's offer to join his presidential ticket, Joe Biden got a promise from Obama: that he would be there for "every critical decision," Biden said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

Speaking to ABC's "This Week," Biden said he believes the vice president's role is to provide "the best, sagest, most accurate, most insightful advice and recommendations he or she can make to a president to help them make some of the very, very important decisions that have to be made."

When Obama talked to him about the vice-presidential slot, Biden recalled, "I said, 'I don't want to be picked unless you're picking me for my judgment. I don't want to be the guy that goes out and has a specific assignment. ... I want a commitment from you that in every important decision you'll make, every critical decision, economic and political, as well as foreign policy, I'll get to be in the room.'"

Biden said President-elect Obama has kept the promise, having Biden in the room for all of his decisions about who will fill key posts in the administration.

Biden will have a specific assignment as the new administration gets under way, however. Come Inauguration Day, he will be the working families czar, so to speak.

On Sunday, Obama's transition team announced the new "White House Task Force on Working Families" -- a major initiative targeted at "raising the living standards of middle-class, working families in America."

The initiative will be chaired by Biden.

Other members of the task force will include the secretaries of labor, health and human services, and commerce, as well as the directors of the National Economic Council, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Domestic Policy Counsel, and the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors.

In an interview with ABC's "This Week," Biden said it's a "discrete job that's going to last only for a certain period of time."

"The one thing that we use as a yardstick of economic success of our administration: Is the middle class growing? Is the middle class getting better? Is the middle class no longer being left behind? And we'll look at everything from college affordability to after-school programs, the things that affect people's daily lives. I will be the guy honchoing that policy," he said.

Biden said he will have the authority to get a consensus among the task force -- but will use his relationship with the president if a consensus isn't reached.

"If in fact there is no consensus, [I'd] go to the president of the United States and say, 'Mr. President, I think we should be doing this, cabinet member so-and-so thinks that. You're going to have to resolve what it is we think we should do.' "

Obama has set up several key goals for the task force, including expanding education and training; improving work and family balance; a focus on labor standards, including workplace safety; and protecting working-family incomes and retirement security.

So what power will the new task force have in shaping policy?

According to the transition team, Biden and other members "will expedite administrative reforms, propose Executive orders, and develop legislative and public policy proposals that can be of special importance to working families."

"My administration will be absolutely committed to the future of America's middle-class and working families. They will be front and center every day in our work in the White House," said Obama in a statement. "And this Task Force will be one vehicle we will use to ensure that we never forget that commitment."

And in line with the Obama team's pledge of full transparency, the task force will issue annual reports, available online to the public.

Anna Burger, chairwoman of Change To Win -- a group made up of seven unions -- hailed the announcement.

"[It] shows that President-elect Obama is committed to middle class families and change truly is coming to Washington. Working people finally have an administration that is willing and eager to take action to address their needs," she said in a statement. "The White House Task Force on Working Families is a vital first step toward restoring our economy and making government work for working people again."

In what ABC billed as Biden's first interview as vice president-elect, Biden also discussed the role he played in helping Sen. Hillary Clinton decide to accept Obama's offer to serve as his secretary of state.

"She's one of my close friends. And when this came forward, I did talk to her. She sought me out. I sought her out as well, to assure her that this was real," he said, adding that "there was a lot swirling around" at the time.

Biden said he does not know whether he played a "key" role in helping Clinton make her decision. "It wasn't so much convincing, but I -- they wanted to know my perspective, and I gave my perspective."

Biden also said that the nation's economy "is in much worse shape than we thought it was in," and the immediate goal is to pass another stimulus package to prevent it from "absolutely tanking."

"There is going to be real significant investment," Biden said. "Whether it's $600 billion or more, or $700 billion, the clear notion is, it's a number no one thought about a year ago.

"... The single most important thing we have to do as a new administration -- to be able to have impact on all of the other things we want to do, from foreign policy to domestic policy -- is we've got to begin to stem this bleeding here and begin to stop the loss of jobs in the creation of jobs," said Biden, who also said he had spoken with members of Congress from both parties about a new stimulus.

Obama, meanwhile, has decided to increase his goal for creating new jobs after receiving economic forecasts that suggest the economy is in worse shape than had been predicted, two Democratic officials told CNN Saturday. Watch what Obama has to say about the economy »

The officials said Obama is increasing his goal from 2.5 million to 3 million jobs over the next two years after receiving projections early this week that suggest the recession will be deeper than expected.

Kenneth G. Brill's "Don't Be Fooled by Pretty Pictures" cautions about using computational fluid dynamics modeling tools, suggesting that they aren't accurate and are a very expensive way to analyze power and cooling air flow in data centers.

While pictures alone don't always tell the true story, CFD analysis is actually a cost-effective and accurate way for technology managers to visualize environmental conditions within a data center. And the color, 3-D graphical pictures that result from a CFD analysis are not only pretty--they can be worth a thousand words when coupled with the analysis, experience and insight of a data center services professional.

An experienced consultant provides strategic planning options for customers to follow, based on a set of parallel efforts to reduce risk and errors as well as assure overall operational improvements. However, a CFD analysis is only one in a complete set of tools at the consultant's disposal.

As Brill stated, a data center consultant needs to play a role akin to an expert physician. But just as a physician wouldn't perform surgery without looking at an X-ray or other image first, a data center manager shouldn't make cooling or heating decisions without a modeling map.

Rather than a pricey, flashy, quick-fix look at how to save on power costs, quality modeling provides great value as a means to evaluate a data center's risks and strengths. CFD models can help services professionals pinpoint exactly where air flow improvements are needed or where to help technology managers adjust capacity planning and budgeting for increased energy efficiency. Usually, the fee for a CFD analysis is very affordable--in the range of $30,000 to $70,000--far less than the $200,000 Brill cited.

A quick survey of technology services providers would show that modeling tools such as a CFD analysis are generally not sold stand alone. In fact, a data center should always be evaluated without modeling first to identify existing inefficiency gaps from non-compliance of best practices before undertaking the more in-depth modeling and analysis. CFD modeling is at its best within data centers where major adherence to best practices are already largely in place.

Once best practices are implemented, CFD will point out data center zones that are out of balance regarding provisioning, information technology loads and return air flows. It will also determine the actual operational condition/capacity of data center Computer Room Air Conditioning or Computer Room Air Handler units. Assumptions about their operational capacity are not in order. For example, the industry's best services consultants would not subcontract the assessment, and they would use a variety of their own power and cooling test and measurement equipment to determine the actual state and capacity of air handlers.