• Union-backed protests set for Thursday in cities across US
Barack Obama will repeat his call for an increase in the minimum wage to close an ever-growing inequality gap in a speech delivered in one of the poorest corners of the nation's capital.
The president will deliver remarks on Wednesday in Anacostia, a deprived neighbourhood just six-miles south of the White House, the day before hundreds of fast-food restaurant workers in more than a hundred US cities strike in a major demonstration over low pay.
The federal minimum wage currently stands at $7.25 an hour, or about $15,000 a year, and Obama has already indicated he will back a Senate measure to increase the minimum statutory pay to $10.10.
A union-backed day of action on Thursday follows hundreds of protests last Friday targeting Walmart over pay and conditions. Obama has repeatedly laid out the case for addressing poverty, acknowledging that while the US economy has grown modestly under his tenure at the White House, unemployment has remained steadfastly high and inequality has grown.
Obama is not expected to propose any new policy initiatives in the speech. But the White House says he will reiterate his call for an increase in the minimum wage and promote possible economic benefits of the troubled healthcare law. Obama also is expected to call on Congress to make a deal on 2014 spending, pass a farm bill with enough money for food stamps and extend unemployment insurance for the long-term unemployed before the end of the year.
Polls show that the economy remains the single biggest concern for Americans, despite the recent focus on problems with the healthcare law. While some economic indicators are showing positive trends, unemployment remains high at 7.3%.
Setting the tone for his state of the union address early next year, Obama is expected to highlight policy priorities that he has previously called for, including attracting businesses from overseas, simplifying the tax code, spending on infrastructure, improving education to compete for high-tech jobs and making college more affordable.
Those ideas have been recurrent themes in Obama's economic agenda, but most have failed to materialise.
Obama has attempted to include some of those policies in past negotiations with Republicans for a comprehensive budget deal that would lower long-term deficits, raise revenue and increase upfront spending to spur the economy. But those efforts have failed and current budget negotiations between congressional Democrats and Republicans are far less ambitious.
"The economy is elemental to most Americans, and it is the principal focus of this presidency," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Tuesday, noting that Obama inherited the worst recession since the great depression in 2009. "We've seen sustained economic growth and job creation for a long time now. But we are not where we need to be."
Obama is expected to press Congress to strike a deal that at least softens the blow of automatic spending cuts that are scheduled to kick in after 15 January. He also is expected to call for a renewal of jobless benefits for 1.3 million long-term unemployed people that expire just three days after Christmas. The additional weeks of benefits have been extended each year since 2009, but a senior Republican lawmaker, congressman Tom Cole of Oklahoma, said Tuesday that Republicans oppose yet another extension.
Wednesday's speech is sponsored by the Center for American Progress, a think tank with close ties to the White House. It is the latest in a series of Obama addresses focused on the challenges of attaining the American dream, from a 2005 commencement address at tiny Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, to his speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, in late 2011, to a return address at Knox College last July.
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