Addressing economic inequality to be major theme of Barack Obama's State of the Union

WHAT should we expect from Barack Obama's State of the Union address?  A lot of measures aimed at reducing economic inequality.

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama's State of the Union address is set to focus on economic inequality, including raising the minimum wage and greater access to job training.

His message to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday will identify measures where he and Congress can cooperate, and he will press issues that will distinguish him and Democrats from Republicans. He'll also make a case for acting alone.

Illustrating his willingness to act on his own, the White House says Mr Obama will announce that he will sign an executive order increasing the minimum wage from $US7.25 ($8.30) to $US10.10 for new federal contracts.

The measure affects only future contracts, not existing ones, and would only apply to contract renewals if other terms of the agreement changed. As a result, the order would benefit far fewer workers than the number foreseen by advocates of federal contract employees.

Still, the issue dovetails with what will be Mr Obama's broader call for an increase in the national minimum wage to $US10.10 and for future increases to be tied to inflation. Mr Obama last year had called for an increase in the minimum wage to $US9.

The address will be wrapped in a unifying theme: The federal government can play a key role in increasing opportunities for Americans who have been left behind, unable to benefit from a recovering economy. Yet, at the core of the address, the president will deliver a split message.

Even as he argues that low income Americans and many in the middle class lack the means to achieve upward mobility, Mr Obama will also feel compelled to take credit for an economy that by many indicators is gaining strength under his watch. As a result, he will talk positively about a recovery that remains elusive to many Americans.

Some Democrats are warning Mr Obama to tread carefully.

"We hope that he does not dwell on the successes of the economy, which may be apparent in employment statistics, the GDP and stock market gains, but which are not felt by folks at the grocery store," Democratic political analysts James Carville and Stan Greenberg wrote in a recent strategy memo.

The president will present Congress with an agenda largely unchanged from what he called for a year ago, but one that nevertheless fits neatly into this year's economic opportunity theme. He will continue to seek an overhaul of immigration laws, an increase in the minimum wage and expanded pre-school education.

But after a year in which those proposals languished and gun control failed, the White House is eager to avoid letting Mr Obama be defined by quixotic ambitions. As a result, he will stress success through executive actions, though their reach would be far more modest than what he could achieve through legislation.

The president also will try to propel fellow Democrats in Congress to re-election in November, an effort complicated by his falling popularity.

In the sixth year of his presidency, public opinion polls put Obama's approval ratings in the low 40s, dramatically down from a year ago. He's taken a big hit over the dismal startup of his signature health care overhaul, which re-energized opposition Republicans after they partially shut down the government in October, costing the economy billions.

"You can be sure that the president fully intends to use his executive authority, to use the unique powers of the office to make progress on economic opportunity to make progress in the areas that he believes are so important to further economic growth and further job creation," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Monday.

Mr Obama's biggest and most lasting accomplishment of his second term could be immigration legislation. House Republican leaders lately have sent signals that they are willing to act on piecemeal legislation, and Mr Obama has given them room to work without prodding.

How immigration gets resolved will depend much on what the House is able to pass and if and how it can be reconciled with bipartisan Senate legislation that passed last year.

Conservatives are pushing back against any bill that gives legal status to immigrants who are in the country illegally. And some Democrats would prefer to use the unresolved issue to mobilise Hispanic voters for this year's midterm elections.

Eager not to be limited by legislative gridlock, Mr Obama is expected to announce executive actions on job training, retirement security and help for the long-term unemployed in finding work - all in addition to his order to increase the minimum wage on new federal contracts.

Among them is a new retirement savings plan geared toward workers whose employers don't currently offer such plans. The program would allow first-time savers to start building up savings in Treasury bonds that eventually could be converted into a traditional Individual Retirement Accounts, according to two people who have discussed the proposal with the administration. Those people weren't authorised to discuss it ahead of the announcement and insisted on anonymity.

"Tomorrow night, it's time to restore opportunity for all," Mr Obama said Monday on the video-sharing site Vine, part of the White House's broad social media promotion of the speech.

The White House says the hike in minimum pay for federal contract workers would most benefit janitors and construction workers working under new federal contracts, as well as military base workers who wash dishes, serve food and do laundry. The White House says contractors will have time to take the higher minimum wage into account when pricing their bids.

Mr Obama's go-it-alone approach has already irritated Republicans, some of whom claim he is pushing the limits of the Constitution; others diminish his initiatives as insubstantial.

"He can work with us to create opportunity and prosperity," wrote Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Republican House Speaker John Boehner. "Or he can issue press releases."

The approach, some Republicans say, could also backfire by angering Republican leaders who already don't trust Mr Obama's administration.

"The more he tries to do it alone and do confrontation, the less he's going to be able to get cooperation," said John Feehery, a former top House Republican aide.

Mr Obama will follow his State of the Union address with a quick trip on Wednesday and Thursday to Maryland, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Tennessee to promote his proposals.

On Friday, Mr Obama will hold an event at the White House where he'll announce commitments from several companies to not discriminate against the long-term unemployed during hiring.

Following tradition, the White House has invited several people to sit with first lady Michelle Obama during Tuesday night's address. Among them are General Motors CEO Mary Barra and Cristian Avila of Phoenix, an immigrant who with two younger siblings was brought to the US illegally when Avila was 9. Now 23, Avila is one of the so-called Dreamers who have benefited from an Obama policy allowing young people who immigrated illegally with their parents to avoid deportation.

The White House also said on Twitter that first dogs Bo and Sunny were ready for the big day.