Congressional Republicans expressed skepticism.
House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, said that while Obama may have the authority to raise the minimum wage on federal contracts, the impact will be "close to zero" because it will only affect future contracts.
He also said an across-the-board increase in the minimum wage could harm the economy. "When you raise the cost of something, you get less of it," Boehner told a news conference after a party meeting near the U.S. Capitol. "And we know from increases in the minimum wage in the past, that hundreds of thousands of low-income Americans have lost their jobs."
'COMES DOWN TO ECONOMIC ISSUES'
Obama is trying to recover from a difficult fifth year in office, when immigration and gun control legislation failed to advance in Congress, his healthcare law struggled out of the starting gate, and he appeared uncertain about how to respond to Syria's civil war.
Polls reflect a dissatisfied and gloomy country. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Tuesday showed 68 percent of Americans saying the country is either stagnant or worse off since Obama took office. People used words like "divided," "troubled" and "deteriorating" to describe the state of the country, the poll showed.
A central theme of the address, Obama's sixth such annual speech in the House chamber, is addressing income inequality, as middle-class Americans struggle to get ahead even while wealthier people prosper in the uneven economic recovery.
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