Obama delivers landmark speech vowing to close gap between rich and poor – but just 1 PER CENT of Americans say that's what concerns them most

Gallup polls show income inequality hardly registers on Americans' worry-meter

The top concerns of Americans – dissatisfaction with government, the national deficit, unemployment and healthcare – are Obama's weak spots

Obama's speech Wednesday ran so long that two out of the three major U.S. cable news channels stopped covering it mid-way through



In a wide-ranging economic stump speech Wednesday, President Obama focused laser-like on the growing gap between America's rich and poor, despite polling that shows hardly anyone believes it's the most pressing issue facing the U.S.

The issue-pivot was an effort to help him move away from the drumbeat of criticism of his policies on health insurance reform and Iran's nuclear program, one White House insider said on background.



'Rising inequality and declining mobility is bad for our democracy,' he said during an event hosted by the far-left Center for American Progress. 'People get the bad taste that the system is rigged.'

'I believe this is the defining challenge of our time,' Obama said of income inequality. 'It drives everything I do in this office.'



But according to Gallup polling from November 7-10, the most recent numbers available, only 1 per cent of Americans believe the 'gap between rich and poor' is the 'most pressing issue' facing the country.

Yet Obama promised on Wednesday that 'for the rest of my presidency, that is where you should expect my administration to focus all of our efforts.'

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President Obama risks being considered tone-deaf and distant in his lame-duck period, focusing on an issue that few Americans care deeply about

Obama didn’t offer new policy prescriptions, but railed against businesses for opposing a minimum-wage hike and for embracing the outsourcing of jobs.

'Wage issues,' Gallup reports, also rate just 1-percent support when Americans are asked to identify their most pressing concern.

The GOP was quick to pounce. A spokesman for Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Senate Budget Committee's ranking Republican, complained that Obama's focus on increasing immigration rates has been 'a major factor in the decline of workers’ wages.'

'This trend would be accelerated dramatically and painfully by the president’s proposal to double the number of guest workers – including h1b workers who will compete directly with struggling college students – while tripling the number of people granted permanent residency.'

Obama's speech was hosted by the liberal Center for American Progress, a group founded and run by Bill Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta

But few Americans, just 2 per cent, are most concerned about immigration. In the fifth year of Obama's presidency, 'dissatisfaction with government' is the single highest-rated American worry, with 26 per cent saying it makes them more uneasy than any other issue.

And amid Obamacare's disappointing rollout and early implementation failures, 19 per cent of Americans believe healthcare is America's most important problem.

Wednesday's speech was a decidedly conscious attempt to pivot away from the singular focus on defending Obamacare that has engulfed the White House for two months.



The president claimed on Wednesday that before his Affordable Care Act became law, 14,000 Americans 'lost their health insurance every single day,' but didn't mention that at least 5 million have lost their medical insurance this fall.



Another 80 million or more are expected to lose their small group insurance coverage, according to 2010 regulatory projections from inside the Obama administration.

Unemployment is the most important issue among 13 per cent of Americans, according to Gallup, and the U.S. budget deficit is feared most by 12 per cent.

Both issues are persistent thorns among Obama defenders.

Physician, heal thyself? Twenty-six per cent of Americans are more worried about their dysfunctional government than anything else, a number that beats every other specific issue

Elephant in the room? Republicans warn that loosening immigration policy has already driven wages down, and opening the floodgates will make things worse

In January 2009, Obama's transition team projected that a broad stimulus spending approach would drive America's unemployment rate down to 5 per cent by July 2013. But even with modest declines, Friday's jobs report is expected to show a 7.2 per cent unemployment rate.



The so-called 'U-6' unemployment rate, a more realistic measure which also includes Americans who have given up searching for work, hit 13.8 per cent in November.

The federal deficit, while shrinking year-on-year from an all-time high in 2009, is projected to explode again after 2016 because of the growth of health care, Social Security, and Medicaid spending.

The years of President Obama's presidency have seen more added to the national debt than in all the other presidential administrations combined.

Dwarfing the class-warfare fight: For every American who ranks income inequality as the most pressing U.S. issue, 19 put healthcare at the top of their lists Obama pivoted away from Iran and his health insurance overhaul law, pointing to an economic agenda that he hopes captures Americans' imagination -- and distracts them from his administration's missteps

The White House told reporters that 400 people attended the president's speech, which was hosted by the Center for American Progress, a far-left think tank founded by former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta.

It has drawn the ire of progressive purists for accepting funding from giant corporations including Comcast, Wal-Mart, General Motors, Pacific Gas and Electric, General Electric, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

