Amid Rampant Inequality, State of the Union to Tout Economic Gains

Despite continued financial hardship for many Americans in the face of the so-called economic recovery, President Barack Obama is widely expected to tout recent financial progress as a mark of his legacy in Tuesday’s State of the Union address.

Observers say his anticipated remarks, set to begin at 9:00pm EST, are likely to highlight a lower national unemployment rate and progressive policy initiatives at a time when the financial crisis persists for low- and middle-class families, and threatens to worsen under proposed corporate-friendly trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Fast Track authority.

“[W]hile President Obama is hard at work preparing his biggest speech of the year, most families are hard at work stretching their budgets to make ends meet,” AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said on Tuesday.

“President Obama has accomplished a lot this past year… but that’s not enough,” Trumka said. “The president has to keep fighting to ensure that everyone has a job.”

As NPR reporter Marilyn Geewax notes, despite some job growth in the past eight years, “2.8 million long-term unemployed workers haven’t seen a paycheck in more than six months. … [T]he homeownership rate was 69 percent in 2004; now it’s just 64.4 percent.”

Obama is reportedly seeking to galvanize support from Congress as he shifts slightly left of center for the last two years of his presidency, experts say. New legislative proposals like the populist-themed “Robin Hood” tax plan, introduced last Monday by mainstream Democrats, will be on the agenda for the State of the Union, along with community college expansion, net neutrality regulation, and wages.

And while this is welcome news to some, the president still has a long way to go to ensure continued economic recovery for those who are still struggling financially, particularly low-income and middle-class families, Economic Policy Institute president Lawrence Mishel said on Monday.

Raising the minimum wage to $12.50, supporting collective bargaining, and expanding tax breaks for low- and middle-income households are among those baseline initiatives, Mishel said. “[T]he ultimate solution to wage stagnation has to be to generate broad-based wage growth.”

As Guardian reporter Dan Roberts points out, “Much of Obama’s challenge in the speech… lies in simultaneously convincing wealthier Americans that the recovery is solid enough to warrant a more redistributive approach, while convincing them that helping those on lower incomes climb the ladder is in the American tradition.”