Obama Promise to Boost Middle Class Already in Peril

President Barack Obama, who said his “one mandate” in a second term was to help middle class families, takes the oath of office with many barriers to raising most Americans’ living standards.

Most Americans started this year with a cut in take-home pay as Congress let a temporary 2-percentage-point reduction in payroll taxes expire. Workers’ own leverage to gain wage increases will be limited for years by competition from the swollen ranks of jobless Americans as forecasters expect the unemployment rate to remain at or above 7 percent through 2014.