Hillary Clinton will argue in a speech on Monday that US businesses are too fixated on short-term profits, especially on Wall Street. The frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination will also pledge to help workers get better pay and more family-friendly policies.



Clinton intends the speech, which she will give at the New School, a historically progressive university in New York City, to outline the economic theory underpinning her campaign, in which she has promised to be a champion for “everyday Americans”.

The former first lady received a boost on Saturday when the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest education union with 1.6 million members, voted to endorse her. The AFT is the first national union to endorse a 2016 presidential candidate.

“Hillary Clinton is a tested leader who shares our values, is supported by our members, and is prepared for a tough fight on behalf of students, families and communities,” AFT president Randi Weingarten said.

Clinton’s speech comes as her nearest rival for the nomination, the socialist independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, has drawn large crowds and is steadily narrowing Clinton’s lead in polls by staking out positions that reflect the leftward shift of the Democratic party’s base.

According to an overview of the speech provided by her campaign on Saturday, Clinton will say that the size of the US economy is best increased by policies that directly enrich the middle class, not by allowing wealth to accumulate among the richest few.

The details and costs of her proposals will be made public later, the campaign said. This delay may add to complaints, especially from the progressive wing of Democratic opinion, that her platform remains too vague to appraise.

Clinton has demurred on whether big Wall Street banks should be broken up by separating commercial banking from investment banking, as some in her party have called for. The risky trading operations of some big banks has been blamed for helping to trigger the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

Clinton will say laws and the tax codes reward financial trading too generously while undervaluing other industries, such as construction and manufacturing.

The financial services industry is also too focused on short-term growth and quarterly reports, she will say, which creates economic bubbles that end up leaving the middle class in the lurch.

Creating new rules on shareholder activism will help counter this, Clinton will say, arguing for greater investment in infrastructure through an infrastructure bank and in research, including development of new sustainable energy sources.

Sanders has suggested increasing the tax rate for the richest Americans to more than 50%. Clinton has declined to specifically discuss raising taxes and will say on Monday only that the tax code will be reformed so that the richest pay a fair share.

She will say she wants to make it easier for people, and women in particular, to work by increasing access to child care, paid leave and paid sick days, areas where the US is stingy compared to most other developed nations.

For example, the US is one of only three countries, with Oman and Papua New Guinea, that does not guarantee paid maternity leave, according to the International Labour Organisation.

She wants to make it harder for companies to underpay workers. Small businesses will be promised “tax relief” on the basis that they create the majority of the country’s new jobs.

Clinton will again say the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour should be raised, although the size of the increase she has in mind remains unclear.

Bernie Sanders has attracted large crowds on the campaign trail, as he presses his progressive agenda. Photograph: Robert F. Bukaty/AP

Clinton is likely to at least indirectly disparage a central pledge made by the former Florida governor Jeb Bush, the favourite for the Republican nomination, who said he would aim to virtually double the US economic growth rate to 4%. Economic success is better measured by how much incomes rise for middle-class people, Clinton will say, rather than any arbitrary growth target.

She will also support collective bargaining, which would mark a clear contrast with Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, one of her strongest Republican rivals who came to national prominence with his efforts to weaken unions representing government workers.

Labour unions, an important source of votes for Democrats, have been slow to embrace Clinton as she equivocates on a planned trade deal between the US and Asian countries. Clinton supported the idea of the deal as secretary of state under Obama, a post she filled in his first term, but unions are convinced it will harm American workers.

Trade is unlikely to be discussed in any detail in Monday’s speech, according to the preview provided by her campaign.