President Obama delivered his annual State of the Union address January 28th, 2014 to an audience of millions of Americans looking for signs of relief from consistently deteriorating living standards. Obama commented on the ever expanding gap between the very rich and the rest of us, and he spoke about raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25/hour to $10.10/hour.
Immediate following the president’s address, Socialist Alternative Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant delivered this response. She explained that the president and the Democratic Party’s measures were inadequate to address the problems that working people face. She welcomed $10.10/hour as a step forward, but also argued that it was not enough for working people who live in large cities where the cost of living is skyrocketing.
