Now that the gender gap in unemployment has disappeared and male-heavy industries are seeing signs of life, we can finally put the buzzword to rest.

If you were one of the unfortunate few who watched ABC's failed wannabe-Tootsie comedy Work It, you wouldn't have known that the mancession has actually ended. But in fact last Friday's jobs report marked the end of the trend (and hopefully the persistent portmanteau).

Before we can declare it over, let's review what it actually was. The term itself was coined by AEI scholar Mark Perry. He was the first to give a name to a striking phenomenon during the recession (officially from 2007-2009): not only did employment tank in male-heavy industries, and not only did they therefore have elevated unemployment rates, but the gap between their unemployment rate and women's was the largest in post-War record-keeping. This was particularly striking because before the recession -- in the months from 2004 to 2007 -- unemployment rates were about equal for the two sexes, and women's even rose higher than men's for some months. This gap between the two rates hit a peak in August of 2009 at 2.7 percent -- men at that point had an 11 percent jobless rate, and women had 8.3. (The gap started closing after that point even as male unemployment rose -- women just started catching up with them in the unemployment department.) To sum up, as Perry puts it, "the impact of job losses was considerably greater for men, since almost 6 million men lost their jobs, compared to only 2.64 million job losses for women. More than two out of every three jobs lost in 2008 and 2009 were held by men (68.5%), or alternatively it was also the case that 217 men lost their jobs for every 100 women who became unemployed in 2008 and 2009."

He points out that much of this was related to the industries most affected by the recession. Construction and manufacturing went into freefall. He calculates that the largest job losses during the recession were in manufacturing -- down by 14 percent -- and construction -- down by 20.2 percent. Men make up 71.2 and 87.5 percent of those industries, respectively. On the other hand, some industries where women dominate were doing well. Education and health services was up 4 percent, 74 percent female, and government jobs were up 2.25 percent, 57 percent female.

Click here to buy Senior Fellow Richard Kirsch’s new book on the epic health care reform battle, Fighting for Our Health.

So that's what Work It was trying to channel: this notion that the economy had so changed that the only job prospects are in female-dominated industries. Where are we now? It turns out the recovery period, officially from 2009 until now (even if it hasn't really felt like one), has created a very different world. While recovery should mean a good bump in jobs for men if they lost so many in the recession, women have surprisingly lost ground. Their unemployment rate has been rising as men's has been falling, in many ways because government jobs are now the ones to suffer overwhelmingly.

But there was still a gender gap in unemployment -- that is, until Friday. Analysis by the National Women's Law Center shows that men and women are now on par for unemployment rates, both standing at 7.7 percent. Mark it: the gender gap that had Perry, the media, and manhood so worried has completely evaporated.

On top of that, the supposedly recession proof, female-dominated industries are not faring as well. And the male dominated ones are starting to show signs of life. Construction is up 2.1 percent; manufacturing is up 2. Yet government jobs are down 1.2 percent, and that's across the board -- 1.5 percent at the federal level, 1.4 at state level, and 1.1 at the local level. Those government job losses are driving our current womancession. Job losses, which skewed male, have now turned into skewed job gains. Men had lost 6 million jobs to women's 2.64 million during the recession, but now women have gained just eight percent of the 1.9 million jobs added in the recovery.

This painful economic period, even if it's showing signs of improvement, is likely far from over. Men and women are both still hurting in huge numbers. But at least one thing has changed: we can stop calling this a mancession.

Bryce Covert is Editor of New Deal 2.0.

To change the wage gap, we have to change systemic problems like unionization, work-family policies, and gender segregation.

The first piece of legislation that President Obama signed into law after being elected was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The Act expanded the statute of limitations for cases alleging pay discrimination based on gender. Yet three years after the signing, the gender wage gap has barely budged. It remained statistically unchanged, with women earning 77.4 percent of what men make.

Obama mentioned this gap briefly in his State of the Union and followed up with a video message about the necessity of ensuring that women make the same as men for equal work. The White House also has an Equal Pay Enforcement Task Force, whose mission is to address loopholes in existing legislation, coordinate the many offices and efforts to enforce current laws, and seek more information on the gap for the public and the government to take more action.

The Task Force announced an Equal Pay App Challenge this week asking for "help in building innovative tools to educate the public about the pay gap and promote equal pay for women." To help with the challenge, Salary.com is releasing its collection of salary data for more than 4,000 jobs for the first time in its history for use in the app. "Knowing what your job pays is an integral part of negotiating a fair wage," said general manager Abby Euler.

According to IWPR, nearly half of all U.S. workers are either contractually forbidden or strongly discouraged from discussing their pay with coworkers. While there isn't a direct link between pay secrecy and the wage gap, the gap persists despite the fact that the Equal Pay Act of 1963 prohibits employers from paying women less than men (and vice versa). As IWPR writes, this is in many ways because "in practice, employer policies regarding pay secrecy, including threats of retaliation, make it difficult for workers to discover pay discrimination and effectively use these rights."

So an app that better allows employees to find out salary information could have an impact on closing the gap. But unfortunately, solutions like these won't address the entire problem, because its roots are systemic. To seriously take action that changes the wage gap, President Obama and Congress would have to look at a variety of solutions, many of which are politically unpalatable.

For starters, unionization is associated with a lower pay gap. The gap starts to close among men and women who belong to a union compared to those who don't -- unionized women earn 87.8 percent of men's wages versus their non-union counterparts who earn 79.9 percent. IWPR's research shows that unions also help to reduce pay secrecy: half as many unionized workers as nonunion workers are discouraged or prohibited from sharing that information with coworkers. But unionization rates have been flat in recent years and have fallen significantly in recent decades. And more men than women are unionized. That gap has been shrinking since the 1980s, but mostly due to a falloff for men. Increased unionization could be a powerful tool for women to use against employers who discriminate in pay, but the trend in the country is going in the opposite direction.

Click here to buy Senior Fellow Richard Kirsch’s new book on the epic health care reform battle, Fighting for Our Health.

At a more fundamental level, our policies to support mothers in the workforce are pitiful compared to other developed countries, yet they have a huge impact on the wage gap. Three-quarters of the women entering the work force will get pregnant on the job, but family leave and childcare policies barely exist.

For instance, a recent Census Bureau analysis found that about half of working first-time mothers got no paid leave to have their babies. The share of women given time off for pregnancy, birth, and childcare has leveled off. Yet a recent Rutgers study shows, "Paid family leave increases wages for women with children." Women who take leave lasting for a month or more are 54 percent more likely to have wage increases the following year than those who don't take any leave.

Along similar lines, a UC Berkley study of California's childcare support system found that early care and education systems have much to do with the ongoing wage gap. It says:

Better pay and benefits are correlated with a continuous work history. Workers' careers are disrupted because of child care failure -- care that is unreliable, unaffordable, or just unavailable -- and these workers are usually women (Hofferth & Collins 2000). Periods of non-employment lead to lower wages because of "skill depreciation," loss of seniority, and sometimes being less likely to receive further training or mentoring due to questions of commitment (Kimmel 2006, p.79).

In other words, childcare allows mothers to keep showing up at work and not have to leave jobs to care for their children. That means their wages won't be damaged for the theoretical loss of skills during those gaps.

The wage gap is also perpetuated by occupational segregation by gender. IWPR's research shows that "irrespective of the level of qualification, jobs predominantly done by women pay less on average than jobs predominantly done by men." In fact, female-dominated occupations make only 66.9 percent of the wages in male-dominated ones at high-skill level, 79.8 percent at the medium-skilled level, and 73.8 percent at the low-skill level. Yet while there was a steady trend toward better integration of women into men's fields (and vice versa) during the 1970s and 80s, there hasn't been any progress since the mid 1990s.

It would be nice if we could just enforce existing laws, get better informed, and therefore make the gap disappear. But the wage gap is far too entrenched for that. It will take addressing underlying issues women face in the workforce -- like union representation, work-family policies, and gender segregation -- to make progress on the pay gap.

Bryce Covert is Editor of New Deal 2.0.

It used to be that white men had steady employment and all the government protection that came with it while minorities and women were stuck with precarious jobs. Now we're all vulnerable.

Malcolm Harris has a New Inquiry essay on the movie Sleeping Beauty (2011) and the feminization of precarious labor. A lot has been written on precarious labor recently, including both John Schmitt's book review in Dissent and Bhaskar Sunkara's critical response. I want to elaborate on this, since looking at gender and precarious work leads to an examination of a favorite topic -- the relationship between pity-charity liberalism and unconditional, universal programs related to economic security. A perfect example is how labor in the New Deal was treated differently by gender. The wedge between the two groups illuminates the difficulty in bringing economic justice to the 21st century. Precarious, vulnerable work was once relegated solely to women, but in this day and age more and more of us will fall into that category.

For Harris, the precarious worker is "indebted, insecure, vulnerable." If the classic notion of a worker "relies on having a bargaining place at the table with the boss," then precarious workers aren't workers (even though all they do is work or try to cobble work together).

How is the work gendered? Harris focuses on gendered affect: "passivity and her eagerness to please, her vulnerability and blank demeanor would look incredibly strange on a young man. Her willingness to keep treading water without the promise of anything better to come, her ability to communicate nonthreateningly and stay quiet at the right times are parts of what Nina Power describes in the chapter 'The Feminization of Labor.'"

But there's an institutional way to think about how the precarious nature of gender and work is both reflected in and amplified by governmental regulatory regimes, and how the future looks bleak in terms of bending those regimes toward just ends. Suzanne Mettler's Dividing Citizens: Gender and Federalism in New Deal Public Policy (1998) is useful for this conversation. (Mettler, a political scientist and recent author of The Submerged State, is a favorite around here -- I, II, -- and recently joined our think-tank neighbors at the Century Foundation as a fellow.)

To set up the problem, Seth Ackerman has recently discussed universal programs in the context of the Tea Party's war against the state:

...[I]t’s indisputable that Tea Partiers make some kind of conceptual distinction between universal programs like Social Security and Medicare and other government programs. But this says less about the Tea Party than it does about universal social programs. It is easy for liberals to point to the Tea Partiers and call them bigots because they make a distinction between 'people on welfare' and 'normal people.' But in fact it’s the state that made the distinction first. When the state operates a means-tested or other conditional program, it inspects each citizen and stamps him or her as belonging to one category or the other... Political scientists have long known that something almost alchemical happens to public opinion when a universal, as opposed to a mean-tested, welfare program is established.

Mettler argues that this distinction comes out of the dual administrative nature of the New Deal. Part of the New Deal was to be administered by newly created federal government programs, while another part was to be administered by local and state authorities. It just so happened that the federal government's role regulated the work and lives of white men, while the state and local role retained authority over women and minorites. Keeping part of the New Deal's welfare state and floor of economic security administered at the state and local level was predicated intellectually on Brandeis' notion of the states as laboratories of democracy and politically on getting Southern white supremacists to endorse the New Deal. This meant that how people realize economic freedom could be maintained and expanded through illiberal means.

Remember that just three years after the Lochner case, with a Supreme Court hostile to all economic regulations, it made an exception to maximum hours regulations for women. Why? In 1908, the Court ruled in Muller v. Oregon, "That woman's physical structure and the performance of maternal functions place her at a disadvantage in the struggle for subsistence is obvious...as healthy mothers are essential to vigorous offspring, the physical well-being of woman becomes an object of public interest and care in order to preserve the strength and vigor of the race." These are the terms on which economic regulation could exist -- protecting essentialist visions of a women's place.

Mettler argues that "programs geared toward men became nationally administered programs and those aimed toward women retained state-level authority." This welfare state led to citizens becoming "divided by gender between two different sovereignties that govern in very different ways." As she says:

Click here to buy Senior Fellow Richard Kirsch’s new book on the epic health care reform battle, Fighting for Our Health.

What it meant to be an "American citizen" meant very different things to the retired male breadwinner, who came to expect his monthly social security check from the national government, and to the poor mother who hoped that the social worker assigned to evaluate her eligibility for a meager welfare check would find her child-rearing and housekeeping efforts worthy. The first was treated with dignity and respect, as an entitled person; the latter, with suspicion and scrutiny.

Mettler maps out a 2X2 grid, dividing out New Deal programs:

The crucial point is that liberal inclusion was based on long-term, full-time work for a single employer. If you had a job along those lines --and these jobs were held by white men at that time -- then you were included in a regime of universal economic security. Short-term, part-time work for multiple employers -- work done by women and minorities -- falls through the cracks into a patchwork of state and local governance. That governance bases inclusion on hierarchical ideals invoking republican notions of where a person stood in his or her community. The notion of the "deserving poor" comes out of this relationship. Aid to Dependent Children (ADC), for instance, was predicated on single mothers being able to retain their "natural" work as housewives and child-raisers. ADC's spot inspections of single mothers for "male callers" gives you a sense of how this played out -- as Mettler notes, "officials monitored and regulated women's moral character."

Progress was made on these New Deal programs up through the 1970s. But there's been significant rollback over the past 30 years. The call to "means-test" social insurance programs, Ending Welfare as We Know It by block-granting welfare's administrative role back to the states, the battles over block-granting Medicaid and privatizing Social Security and Medicare -- all have shifted the momentum in the opposite direction. But where does this leave us now, especially in regard to precarious labor?

I asked Dorian Warren, Columbia political scientist, Roosevelt Institute Fellow, and union expert, about where this stands. As he puts it:

Add up the Mettler argument with Hacker's notion of "policy drift," and most New Deal social policies (especially the FLSA and the NLRA) are outdated and obsolete. They were crafted with assumptions about work and the nature of the economy in mind: an agricultural and industrial economy, where workers had long-term attachments to one employer. That's no longer the case, and labor and employment laws haven't caught up to the new employment relationship. Long story short, we don't have the adequate legal structures to deal with this new employment environment.

The battle to move the welfare state to the federal level, where it could be administered inclusively and universally, was an intellectual and political battle waged within the New Deal. How is this playing out in the Obama administration? I'll eventually build a full case against the "nudge" theory of the administrative state, but for now a theory of using subtle and unconscious government techniques to help people work better within "choice architectures" isn't up to the challenge of recreating a regulatory environment for a new age.

For insight into how the current administration's approach is playing out in this model, take a look at the administration of health care reform. I asked Richard Kirsch, recent author of Fighting for Our Health and Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow, about the federal/local administration of health care reform. He responded:

The House bill set up a strong federal exchange and let the states do their own only if their exchanges had stronger consumer protections. However with the Senate bill -- the law we have now -- states can set up very weak exchanges. And the insurance industry has lots of clout at the state level. The best hope is that there will be a strong federal exchange for states that don’t set up their own. But that will only be true if HHS creates one.

So we have an outdated regulatory regime, an intellectual climate geared towards local, illiberal control, and the application of economic freedoms designed to keep women yoked to essentialist and moralistic discoures. A "polarizing" workforce means that the labor market, without significant reform, will take on an exaggerated version of the split we saw in the New Deal, with the precarious work falling into a patchwork administration system of moralizing and without opportunities to organize.

Mike Konczal is a Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute.

As President Obama delivered his third State of the Union address, we asked Fellows and staff from the Four Freedoms Center, Campus Network, and Pipeline to weigh in with their thoughts on what they wanted to hear and how the speech matched up:

Ellen Chesler, Senior Fellow, Roosevelt Institute:

"Since Obama's speech was so overtly political and partisan, challenging Republicans on basic principles, I was actually surprised at first that it contained so few explicitly 'gendered' references. Candidate Obama, after all, can only win a second term handily if he woos back the independent women voters who favored him by such a wide margin in 2008, but then abandoned congressional Democrats in the midterms over their disenchantment with his handling of the economy.

Granted, the speech had a predictable shout-out to 'equal pay' and a coy but definitely pre-meditated reference to the owners of small businesses as 'shes,' not 'hes,' which reminded us of my very favorite little-known employment statistic -- that women-owned businesses employ more people in this country than all the Fortune 500 companies combined.

But by and large, Obama eschewed the potential divisiveness of identity politics in favor of a few overarching themes: I inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, but we've created millions of new jobs since I've been here; after eight years of Republican rule, the gap between rich and poor has never been greater in this country, but I will end this extreme and unsustainable inequality; and I took on two wars, but today not a soldier remains in combat in Iraq, American troops are leaving Afghanistan, Bin Laden is dead, and his henchmen are in retreat.

And this may be the wiser strategy. The great majority of elections since 1984 have seen a sizable gender gap, with woman endorsing the government activism and commitment to fair play that Democrats represent. There have been only two exceptions: 2010, when the economy tanked, and 2002, when national security trumped all other issues after 9/11. Reminding those women that they and their families will be far better off and a whole lot safer under Democrats is really all candidate Obama needed to say about the State of the Union."

Suzanne Kahn, Fellow, Roosevelt Institute | Pipeline:

"Last night's speech was full of really interesting and exciting proposals. But in a speech that was full of fairly detailed policy suggestions, the one mention of equal pay for equal work for women was remarkably flimsy. President Obama said women should earn equal pay for equal work, but gave no further detail on how to make that happen. This is an issue that has been on the table for half a century, yet women still earn about 77 cents for every dollar men earn.

At this point, we know there are a range of policies that would help close this gap -- everything from more affordable childcare to stronger rules that allow women to discover wage discrimination and sue for damages. But President Obama did not point to any of these policies last night. He didn't tell us how he wanted to make his stated desire for equal pay become a reality. Without concrete proposals, it's hard to see how this rhetoric will become anything more than that this year. That's too bad, because women have demanded and needed stronger equal pay protections for decades."

Minjon Tholen, Fellow, Roosevelt Institute | Pipeline:

"A State of the Union address at the beginning of an election year means high stakes for an incumbent president. Sandwiched between the country's military accomplishments and foreign policy strategies, President Obama delivered a well-crafted speech that redefined American values to include fair play and equal opportunity, shared responsibility, working together, and having each other's backs. His repeated call for receiving bills proposed by Congress was his critique of polarizing, ego-driven, and stalled negotiations that were meant to discredit the Obama administration rather than to do what is best for the American people. The president's attitude and words were energetic, clear, defiant, strong, and optimistic; I want to see this character and backbone reflected throughout his campaign and second term, and for it to be translated into actions and innovative policies.

I especially appreciated Obama's dedication to accessible and effective education and health care, tax and government reform, and gender equality. I was happy to hear statements such as 'Women should earn equal pay for equal work,' 'I won't allow insurance companies to charge women differently than men,' and 'We will stand for the rights and dignity of all human beings -- men and women; Christians, Muslims, and Jews.' I am concerned about the lack of proposed concrete actions and comprehensive policy changes to accomplish these things. Still, Obama may be the most feminist president this country has known thus far. And who's next -- Hilary Clinton? On that note, seeing Secretary Clinton's strong and positive presence at the SOTU makes an Obama-Clinton ticket for this year's campaign a tempting thought. Not only could it reenergize the campaign and reinforce the legitimacy and competency of the administration, it would also be an even stronger force to reckon with, which is something we will surely need this election cycle."

Thomas Ferguson, Senior Fellow, Roosevelt Institute and Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts, Boston:

"Some of the president's proposals are intriguing, but they are hard to assess until we see details -- the mortgage refinancing program above all. I don't see any reason why the attorney general needs to be assisted by state attorneys general in investigating mortgage fraud. The latter have spearheaded all serious efforts to rein in the banks; this new federal/state initiative looks like an effort to curb the more vigorous state efforts.

The president's words were clear but only sometimes reassuring. It is fine to talk exports and jobs, but the heart of those programs are mostly special subsidies to business. It would be far better for all of us if the president abandoned his fixation on the deficit for the next few years and focused on sustaining total demand in the economy instead of myriad special subsidies. The proposals on political money are weak indeed; the president is really punting on that issue, especially the role of secret funds. And there is deep contradiction between the president's emphasis on education and the actual conditions of the states. Most education funding from the federal government gets channeled through states and localities. But they are broke. And while it's fine to cut interest rates on student loans, the real problem is that students are assuming way too much debt. A useful federal government initiative on public higher education has to address that. One also has to say that the rhetoric about the United States being more respected than ever is, well, politics.

One of the most striking characteristics of the European financial crisis has been the muted role of the U.S., and there is no mystery about why that is: the U.S. cannot afford to contribute much of anything except Federal Reserve swap lines. Those are important, but it's a long drop from the role the U.S. played in previous financial crises."

Taylor Jo Isenberg, Deputy Director, Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network:

"No one doubts that the president is an oratory genius. His ability to deliver a speech makes dreamers out of pessimists and believers out of skeptics. And after the last three years, it's easy to argue that there are plenty of the latter out there, particularly among Millennials. Every single issue he tackled in the State of the Union has long-term implications for our generation -- from worrying trends in college affordability to frightening statistics on a shrinking middle class. The stakes are high for us. We get that.

We also get that governing is hard. There is frustration with undelivered promises and dispiriting inaction on key issues, but we understand that nation building takes time and that it takes all of us, every day. President Obama summoned the fiery, activist candidate that inspired millions in 2008, and it was a reminder of the inspiration we have to tap into -- and the civic responsibility we must commit to -- if we are to continue to work towards a more progressive society. The speech was powerful at some points, flat at others; it stated important truths, but shirked difficult topics. What's more important is whether the country decides to take his final message and hold fast to the truth that this nation is 'great because we get each other's back.' Where the hope and promise now lies is the fact that we, as a generation, definitely get that."

Reese Neader, National Policy Director, Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network:

"President Obama effectively laid out a new economic blueprint in his State of the Union address. This long-term vision reflects his narrative of 'winning the future' and is a sensible plan for how the United States can promote shared prosperity in the early 21st century. There are seven fundamental issues of 'nation building' that we must address to move our country forward: Investment in every stage of education so that American children can grow up to compete on an even playing field in the global economy and have the skills necessary to grow American jobs. Investment in innovation so that U.S. businesses can brandish a competitive edge in the global economy and U.S. households can power themselves with American-made energy.

1. Investment in every stage of education so that American children can grow up to compete on an even playing field in the global economy and have the skills necessary to grow American jobs.
2. Investment in innovation so that U.S. businesses can brandish a competitive edge in the global economy and U.S. households can power themselves with American-made energy.
3. Investment in infrastructure that allows the U.S. to maintain its competitive edge in the global economy and increases economic opportunity for all Americans.
4. Financial reform that effectively regulates excessive market risk, creates new markets for economic growth and job creation, and ensures U.S. households and businesses get the support they deserve.
5. Tax reform that rewards U.S. companies for innovation and job creation, while ensuring that every person pays their fair share into the system.
6. Immigration reform that favors well-educated, high-skilled workers and provides reasonable opportunities for undocumented workers to obtain citizenship.
7. Governmental reform that will allow all of these goals to be achieved much more efficiently and effectively.

The president's fundamental vision is that the federal government has a positive role to play in our lives: ensuring that 'everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.' His blueprint for change is designed to steer our country toward a new era of shared prosperity. Working towards that vision with focus and vigor is the only way that our country can 'win' the 21st century."

Winston Lofton, National Field Director, Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network:

"The president did not spend much time talking about the 'State' of the 'Union.' There was a sprinkling of typifying American stories and a nod to widespread frustration with the culture of Congress and money in politics. There was no acknowledgement of the nearly one in two Americans who are not economically secure, the damage our food and energy infrastructure is doing to people and the planet, or the powerlessness Americans feel in the face of collective challenges. He paid no heed to fresh instances of institutionalized Islamophobia, or to the compounding inadequacies of housing, schools, jobs, and criminal justice facing urban and rural communities. He book-ended his address not by focusing on the plight, nor the brilliance, of our mothers, sisters, and cousins, but by focusing on the might and glory of our military. This was not so much a 'State of the Union' as a 'State of the Empire.'

That's because last night, the president did not speak to me. He spoke to members of Congress as if they were -- or at least as if they represented -- rich, powerful elites whose primary concerns were beating plutocrats and oligarchs in other countries and continuing to be the world's biggest, baddest bully. Even in acknowledging the dismal state of American education, he discussed how that system is inhibiting Bill Gates's access to a productive workforce, not failing our children and parents. His solutions were small (e.g. addressing "insider trading" as a solution to money in politics) or outmoded (for example, his nostalgic focus on the need for a manufacturing-heavy labor market).

Ultimately I'm a pragmatist, and I know that actually improving the material realities for Americans on the ground is far more important than articulating wishful thoughts of a utopian future on high. I appreciate the need for trust, constructive dialogue, and the negotiation of overlapping consensus in Congress. This just wasn't the place for it. This was the place for the president to set the framework in which that negotiation takes place, to highlight the contours of what's right and wrong with our Union today, to tell Aunt Nancy that he understands her pain and that there is a way forward. Instead, he took a center-right set of assumptions as a frame and attempted to project Candidate Obama as the reasonable convener with some okay ideas.

The State of the Union address was another reminder that we can't look to one man to solve our problems from afar. We need a lively democracy with distributed, engaged, savvy leadership in synagogues, community colleges, and break rooms across the country."

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Kristen Tullos, Fellow, Roosevelt Institute | Pipeline:

"As I expected, President Obama did not have as much to say about housing, although he mentioned it in several places. There was some speculation before the SOTU that he might unveil a new pilot program to convert vacant homes owned by Fannie and Freddie into rental property, which would put those properties to productive use and satiate some of the demand that is driving a steady increase in rental prices. Alas, we'll have to wait for another speech. He did mention a plan, yet to be unveiled, that will give every homeowner about $3,000 in savings through refinancing their mortgages. Like much of the SOTU, the plan sounds good in theory (and certainly in President Obama's tone and inflection) but lacks the details that will determine the outcome. His administration has tried to help homeowners many times before, but each program fell short of its purported goal. One positive thing I took away is that President Obama wants to charge the large banks a fee to fund the proposal. I strongly support making banks help homeowners, although I believe we should go much further than paying a (likely) small fee. This jives with my basic ideas of fairness and justice, and I expect it will resonate with many Americans.

At the same time, I took issue with the many times he used the terms 'responsible homeowners' and 'responsible families who want to buy a home.' It's like trying to categorize the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor. Good luck. Investigations done after the housing crisis have shown that most of the subprime lending was driven by investors and especially brokers who had every incentive to put unqualified people into complex, risky loans while keeping none of the risk. In addition, lending is an area where there is a huge asymmetry of information. I hope that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, also mentioned by President Obama, will simplify and clarify lending documents."

Alan Smith, National Program Director, Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network:

"Where was Obamacare? In last night's State of the Union, Barack Obama started off laying out major wins from his presidency: Soldiers are out of Iraq; Bin Laden is dead; even Dodd-Frank's Wall Street reforms got a shout-out. But he didn't mention Obamacare even once over the course of the evening.

If he's already started running on his record, why not mention the ways that health care reform has already started to have positive effects? Why not highlight the impact of one of the few huge pieces of legislation that he got passed? I don't love the idea of treating the State of the Union as a campaign speech, but there are a lot of positive things to mention.

Around 2.5 million young adults have insurance now that didn't have insurance before. Another 2.5 million senior citizens saved a few hundred dollars each on their prescription drug costs in the 'doughnut hole' that Obama closed. There's a lot more -- hard numbers that would serve as good applause lines in the SOTU.

He also could have used it as a moment for teaching viewers about the many big picture changes and savings that are still to come in 2014. I worked hard to make the health care bill as awesome as it could be, and while I was disappointed with some of the things that the final legislation left on the table (cough cough, public option, cough) I did feel it was a signature achievement."

Rajiv Narayan, Senior Fellow for Health Care, Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network:

"The State of the Union is stronger than the president gives it credit for. While following the nostalgic trip back through a year that featured economic recovery, an end to war, and an end to many dictatorships, I was waiting for President Obama to underscore the underdog story of health care reform. Despite obstructionism in the legislature, noncompliance in some states, and uncertainty in the court system, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has managed to make great strides. It's no small feat that 2.5 million young Americans have gained health coverage in a little over a year. But I am not surprised discussion of health care reform did not make the final draft. The elephants in the room would be less than receptive to news of success. Perhaps I am alone in thinking public controversy is not all bad. Since the last mention of health care in a 2009 congressional address was greeted by the now-immortalized 'You lie!' from Rep. Joe Wilson, we've learned that outbursts are more often remembered for their silliness than their salience. When the whole world is watching, the administration should stick to all its guns, not just those that are universally popular."

Dante Barry, Chapter Services Coordinator and Summer Academy Coordinator, Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network:

"At the end of the president's address last night, he reminded us that the story of this country is much bigger than politics. He noted that this country wasn't built by any one person; it required a team effort and a shared vision. At this point, Congress is in a political deadlock where partisanship is obstructing action. I am so proud that the president spoke with conviction and confidence. He reminded me that the work that Campus Network members do is a part of the journey forward that he mentions, and that it will strengthen the state of the country as they work with their communities to address their challenges."

Nick Santos, Fellow, Roosevelt Institute | Pipeline:

"In general, the president's tone was very optimistic and success-oriented, which is to be expected. I think he made excellent use of phrasing that demanded legislation on his desk that he promises to sign, allowing him to come across as action-oriented in comparison to Congress' obstruction. His proposal to take savings from the war and put that toward paying down the debt and building infrastructure is a great idea and a strong message.

As for energy policy, the president played to the right wing in his chosen messages and devoted significant time to fossil fuels. He played the security card most heavily on energy, making mention of the Department of Defense's efforts and reductions in foreign energy. He used the Republicans' message of ‘all of the above' for energy, talked first about expansion of offshore oil drilling, and focused heavily on choosing natural gas (a fossil fuel) for being cleaner than other fossil fuels.

When the president got to clean energy, he kept with the optimistic tone of the rest of his speech and didn't mention the problems we face, like waning fossil fuel supplies or climate change. This is a huge problem for issues that need to be talked about to be credible. He did, however plug some practical solutions to these problems that are economically sensible, create jobs, and are populist. He mentioned policies like expansion of energy efficiency programs, use of public lands for clean energy, clean energy tax credits, and ending oil subsidies. His most controversial energy policy was only a brief mention of a clean energy standard.

My feeling is that this was not the kind of ambition we need on as vital an issue as energy, but it is the kind of compromise I expect from Obama. It is a position that delicately straddles the line on policies that compete with one another. It's a pragmatic approach to passing energy policies and may be more effective in the short run, but a more visionary approach to energy that addressed our greatest needs would have involved a call for a cap on our carbon emissions to stem the greatest effects of global warming, a commitment to shutting down old, dirty coal plants, skipping the rhetoric on expanding fossil fuels, commitments of federal government agencies outside of Defense to buying clean energy, and more time detailing the clean energy policies that he mentioned in passing. Many of those are good policies that would help encourage our young clean energy economy to grow."

Erika Solanki, Senior Fellow for Economic Development, Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network:

"What I found most significant was the president's reference to the importance of job market integration with community colleges. In the midst of troubling economic circumstances with ever-more powerful competition from countries like India and China, it's critical for America to ensure that its young adults have access to the education that gives them the skills to compete on the world market. Complementary to access to higher education is the issue of optimization. We need to reinvigorate our economy by increasing efficiency and strategizing potential within community colleges. It is imperative that community college students are able to translate their scholastic training into real earnings.

Ultimately, community college educations can become powerful mechanisms for economic mobility, however, in order to achieve this ideal, we need to bridge the gap between community colleges and employers. Currently, more than two thirds of community college students fail to complete their community college education or fail to transfer to a four-year school. In order to utilize post-secondary education as an economic tool, it is critical that community colleges work with employers to illuminate the immense possibilities and dividends that can become apparent upon successful completion. By more actively and directly connecting community college programs with career-driven professional tracks, we can institute generational socio-economic transformations among many families."

Rahul Rekhi, Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network member, Rice University chapter:

"This week marked the start of the Lunar New Year -- a clean slate, a fresh beginning, the start of something, well, new. But what was compelling about last night's presidential address was neither its novelty nor its unorthodoxy. Indeed, for all of its grandiose trappings, for all its hubbub and stately decorum, this State of the Union -- and, by extension, the president's policy palette -- can be summed up quite neatly in just two words: common sense.

Because ultimately, at least from this millennial wonk's perspective, the proposals President Obama advocated largely seem to be just that: common sense. Ending discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, as done under the Affordable Care Act? A no-brainer. Increased student aid? Unambiguously valuable. Corporate tax reform? Not even a question. Increased investments in medical research and basic science? You guessed it -- just plain common sense. In just a little over an hour, the president articulated many of the most pressing policy concerns that remain most troubling to Millennials: burdensome student debt, the staggeringly high unemployment rate, and continued access to health care, just to name a few -- and proffered solutions that were, for the most part, both bipartisan and substantive.

Yet, despite this, it is unlikely, given the current standstill state of Congress, that more than just a few -- if any -- of these must-have solutions will be signed into law this year. Whether that's due to the president's shortcomings as a negotiator, historically unparalleled Republican intransigence, or the intrinsically unyielding nature of partisan gridlock is unclear. One thing, however, is for sure: the limiting reagent in Washington right now is not ideas, but action, and until that changes, the American Dream alluded to tonight may, for my generation and those that follow, remain just that -- a dream. 2012 may well be the Year of the Dragon, but it might just be remembered for a chimera of an entirely different sort."