President Barack Obama urged lawmakers to consider steps to alleviate income inequality, calling the income gap between America's rich and poor as a "defining challenge of our time," The Associated Press reported. In a speech delivered at the Twon Hall Education Arts and Recreation Campus, a nonprofit community center in Washington D.C, Obama spoke at an event was hosted by the Center for American Progress.
"The basic bargain at the heart of our economy has frayed...," Obama said.
The president cited Pope Francis' recent comments in which he said "it is not news if an elderly homeless person dies from exposure, but news if the stock market loses two points."
"More than half of Americans at some point in their lives will experience poverty," Obama said.
It remains vital to make "sure we empower more Americans with the skills and education they need," including preschool. It is also vital to be "empowering our workers... so unions have a level playing field," he added.
Obama did not propose any new policy initiatives, but said that increasing income inequality is more pronounced in the U.S. than other countries.
"It should compel us to action. We're a better country than this," reiterating his call for an increase in the minimum wage and other measures, The Associated Press reported.
"People [are] working their tails off... It's well past the time to [increase] a minimum wage that in real terms is lower right now than when Harry Truman was in office," Obama said.
"The president vowed to focus the last three years of his presidency on addressing the discrepancy and a rapidly growing deficit of opportunity that is a bigger than threat than the fiscal deficit," The AP reported.
Republicans need to say "what you are for, not what you are against," Obama said.
"We can make a difference on this. In fact, that is our generation's task, to rebuild American's economic and civic foundation to continue the expansion of opportunity for this generation and the next generation," the president added.
