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 Obama's efforts to help the long-term unemployed are part of an
economic strategy he will lay out in his annual State of the Union
address on Tuesday and expound upon during a four-state tour,
Pfeiffer said in a mass email from the White House.
"With some action on all our parts, we can help more job seekers
find work, and more working Americans find the economic security
they deserve," Pfeiffer said in his email.
Obama has vowed to address the gap between rich and poor in America,
and has said he will do what he can — even without help from a
deeply divided Congress that, so far, has shown little willingness
to spend money on new programs.
He has said he will take executive actions to push forward his
agenda, as well as the power of the highest office in the nation to
motivate business and community leaders to take additional steps.
A White House official said Obama will announce in his Tuesday
speech new executive actions on retirement security and job training
to help middle-class workers "expand economic opportunity" — a key
theme of the speech.
Already this year, Congress thwarted Obama's efforts to extend
jobless benefits for people who have been unsuccessfully seeking
work for more than six months.
Benefits for 1.5 million Americans expired at the end of 2013. The
Senate failed in mid-January to agree on a plan to renew the
benefits.
Obama will hammer home his economic plans during a two-day,
four-state trip to Prince George's County, Maryland, and Pittsburgh
on Wednesday, and Milwaukee and Nashville on Thursday, an official
said.
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Vice President Joe Biden will visit Monroe Community College in
Rochester, New York, on Wednesday to talk about "education and
workforce development," the White House said. He will be accompanied
by his wife, Jill Biden, who is a community college teacher.
After Obama's trip, he will return to the White House "to outline
new efforts to help the long-term unemployed," Pfeiffer said in his
statement.
Obama had promised earlier this month that he would bring a group of
chief executive officers to the White House in an effort to persuade
them to hire more people from the ranks of the long-term unemployed.
"We're going to try to work with CEOs to make a pledge that we're
going to take a second look at these Americans who are very eager to
get back to work and have the capacity to do so, but aren't getting
the kind of shot that they need," Obama said on January 14 ahead of
a meeting with his Cabinet.
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Gunna
Dickson)
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