President Barack Obama told the New York Times that he was worried that years of widening income inequality and the enduring effects of the financial crisis had torn the nation's social fabric and undercut Americans' faith in greater opportunity.
Upward mobility, Mr. Obama said in a 40-minute interview with The New York Times, "was part and parcel of who we were as Americans."
"And that's what's been eroding over the last 20, 30 years, well before the financial crisis," he added.
"If we don't do anything, then growth will be slower than it should be. Unemployment will not go down as fast as it should. Income inequality will continue to rise," he said. "That's not a future that we should accept."
A few days after the acquittal in the Trayvon Martin case prompted him to speak about being a black man in America, Mr. Obama said the country's struggle over race would not be eased until the political process in Washington began addressing the fear of many people that financial stability is unattainable.
"Racial tensions won't get better; they may get worse, because people will feel as if they've got to compete with some other group to get scraps from a shrinking pot," Mr. Obama said. "If the economy is growing, everybody feels invested. Everybody feels as if we're rolling in the same direction."
Mr. Obama, who this fall will choose a new chairman of the Federal Reserve to share economic stewardship, expressed confidence that the trends could be reversed with the right policies.
Read more at the New York Times.