Inequality is front & center at SOTU

President Barack Obama delivers the State of Union address before a joint session of Congress in the House chamber Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2014, in Washington. (AP Photo/Larry Downing, Pool)

In his address, President Obama said:

“Today, after four years of economic growth, corporate profits and stock prices have rarely been higher, and those at the top have never done better. But average wages have barely budged. Inequality has deepened. Upward mobility has stalled. The cold, hard fact is that even in the midst of recovery, too many Americans are working more than ever just to get by – let alone get ahead. And too many still aren’t working at all. Our job is to reverse these trends. It won’t happen right away, and we won’t agree on everything. But what I offer tonight is a set of concrete, practical proposals to speed up growth, strengthen the middle class, and build new ladders of opportunity into the middle class.”

Those proposals included most notably an increase in the minimum wage. “Americans understand that some people will earn more than others,” he said. “And we don’t resent those who, by virtue of their efforts, achieve incredible success. But Americans overwhelmingly agree that no one who works full time should ever have to raise a family in poverty.”

The President also called for expanded pre-K and broadband access, among other proposals.

You can read a full transcript of the speech here, watch video of it here and listen to Mara Liasson’s report on NPR’s Morning Edition here:

In the official Republican response Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington addressed the issue directly.

“The President talks a lot about income inequality,” she said. “But the real gap we face today is one of opportunity inequality. And with this Administration’s policies, that gap has become far too wide.”

McMorris described families who can’t find full-time work, can’t afford college educations, and who are out-living their life savings.

“Last month, more Americans stopped looking for a job than found one. Too many people are falling further and further behind because, right now, the President’s policies are making people’s lives harder.”

She described, in general terms, Republican plans to grow jobs, improve education, and reform immigration. You can watch her response here.

In his response for the Tea Party, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah tackled inequality – and the President’s position on the issue – more directly.

“We are facing an inequality crisis – one to which the President has paid lip-service, but seems uninterested in truly confronting or correcting,” said Lee. He said the inequality crisis present itself in three forms:

“Immobility among the poor, who are being trapped in poverty by big-government programs; insecurity in the middle class, where families are struggling just to get by and can’t seem to get ahead; and cronyist privilege at the top, where political and economic insiders twist the immense power of the federal government to profit at the expense of everyone else.”

He went on to say the Obama administration “continues to leave poor and middle-class families further behind, while he and his allies insist that the real problem is ‘inequality’ itself.” Lee criticized Obama on a range of issues he said leads to inequality, and specifically targeted the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), calling it an “inequality Godzilla that has robbed working families of their insurance, their doctors, their wages and their jobs.”

Watch Sen. Lee’s full Tea Party response to the State of the Union here.

What do you think of the fact that inequality has become the focus of national leaders on both sides of the political spectrum? Is the issue more about income or opportunity? Did anything President Obama, Rep. McMorris or Sen. Lee resonate as a potential solution to the problem? Or is inequality actually a problem in the U.S.? Let us know what you think!