Fact-checking Obama's speech, Republican response

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama promised to clear red tape from highway projects that are stalled because there's no money for them, not because rules are in the way. He's ordering a higher minimum wage for a sliver of the workforce.

Going it alone -- without Congress making a law -- doesn't go as far as President Barack Obama made it sound at times Tuesday in his State of the Union speech.

A look at some of the facts and political circumstances behind his claims, along with a glance at the Republican response:

OBAMA: "Today, after four years of economic growth, corporate profits and stock prices have rarely been higher, and those at the top have never done better. But average wages have barely budged. Inequality has deepened. Upward mobility has stalled."

THE FACTS: The most recent evidence suggests mobility hasn't worsened. A team of economists led by Harvard's Raj Chetty released a study last week that found the United States isn't any less socially mobile than it was in the 1970s. Looking at children born between 1971 and 1993, the economists found the odds of a child born in the poorest 20 percent of families making it into the top 20 percent hasn't changed.

Still, other research has found the United States isn't as mobile a society as most Americans would like to believe. In a study of 22 countries, economist Miles Corak of the University of Ottawa found the United States ranked 15th in social mobility. Only Italy and Britain among wealthy countries ranked lower.

OBAMA: "We'll need Congress to protect more than 3 million jobs by finishing transportation and waterways bills this summer. But I will act on my own to slash bureaucracy and streamline the permitting process for key projects, so we can get more construction workers on the job as fast as possible."

THE FACTS: Cutting rules and regulations doesn't address what's holding up most transportation projects -- lack of money. The federal Highway Trust Fund will run out of money in August without action. To finance infrastructure projects, Obama wants Congress to raise taxes on businesses that keep profits or jobs overseas, but that idea has been a political nonstarter.

The number of projects affected by the administration's efforts to cut red tape is relatively small, said Joshua Schank, president and CEO of the Eno Center for Transportation, a think tank. "The reason most of these projects are delayed is they don't have enough money. So it's great that you are expediting the review process, but the review process isn't the problem."

OBAMA: "In the coming weeks, I will issue an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay their federally funded employees a fair wage of at least $10.10 an hour, because if you cook our troops' meals or wash their dishes, you shouldn't have to live in poverty."

THE FACTS: This would be a hefty boost in the federal minimum wage, now $7.25, but not many would see it.

Most employees of federal contractors earn more than $10.10. About 10 percent of those workers, about 200,000, might be covered by the higher minimum wage.

But he increase would not take effect until 2015 at the earliest and it doesn't apply to existing federal contracts, only new ones. Renewed contracts also will be exempt from Obama's order unless other terms of the agreement change, such as the type of work or number of employees needed.

REP. CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS of Washington, in her prepared Republican response: "Last month, more Americans stopped looking for a job than found one. Too many people are falling further and further behind because, right now, the president's policies are making people's lives harder."

THE FACTS: She leaves out a significant factor in the high number of people who aren't looking for jobs: Baby boomers are retiring.

It's true a large part of the still-high unemployment rate is because of jobless workers who have given up looking. There are about three people seeking every job opening, a circumstance that can discourage others from trying. But one big reason people aren't seeking employment is there are so many boomers -- the generation born in the aftermath of World War II -- and therefore more than the usual number of retirements.

 As of December, the economy had gained 3,246,000 jobs since Obama took office in January 2009. When he was inaugurated, the unemployment rate was 7.8 percent and on the rise. It peaked at 10 percent in October 2009 and has been inching down since, to 6.7 percent in December.