Hillary Rodham Clinton will make boosting middle class incomes and wages the focus of her economic agenda, pointing to stagnant paychecks as the central challenge facing the US economy.
The Democratic presidential front-runner intends to lay out the themes of her economic plan in a speech on Monday, emphasizing the need for the real income of everyday Americans to rise steadily alongside corporate profits and executive compensation.
While Republican candidate Jeb Bush has called for an annual growth rate of 4 per cent, Clinton will assert that the US economy should not be judged by a specific growth figure but rather by how much income increases for middle-class households.
"For a typical working American, their income has not been rising anywhere near as fast as it should be rising, and that is the challenge we face. It's not a new problem, and it's going to take a holistic vision," said David Kamin, a New York University law professor who has advised Clinton's campaign.
Clinton's campaign today provided a preview of her speech to be given at The New School, a university in New York City. The campaign said Clinton will point to economic progress during her husband's two terms in the 1990s and more recently under President Barack Obama.
But she will aim to identify ways of improving upon the uneven nature of the nation's recovery since the Great Recession, bolstering wages even as the unemployment rate has fallen to a seven-year low of 5.3 per cent.
The former secretary of state is expected to begin outlining a series of specific economic proposals this summer on issues like wage growth, college affordability, corporate accountability and paid leave.
In Clinton's approach to the economy, more Americans would share in the prosperity and avoid the boom-and-bust cycles of Wall Street that have led to economic turbulence of the past decade. She is also expected to argue that the nation should not be fatalistic about globalization and that specific policy steps can help US workers achieve better living standards.
Clinton, who is seeking to become the nation's first female president, is also expected to address ways of making it easier for women to join the workforce.
