We believe that we rise or fall as one people.

It's time to turn the page for hope.

The jobs that remain pay less and offer fewer benefits, as employers have succeeded in busting up unions and cutting back on health care and pensions to stay competitive with the companies abroad that are paying their workers next to…

So, for those Americans who have been searching unsuccessfully for employment, I will invest $50 million in programs that will place willing workers into transitional jobs and train them for permanent ones.

There are fewer and fewer families who can tell this story today.

Each year at this time we honor and think about the fathers who've been a part of our lives - the examples they've set, the sacrifices they've made, their successes and their struggles.

It has not been lost on either Michelle or myself that our family's story has been America's story - a story of opportunity, and possibility, and the tireless pursuit of a dream that was always within reach.

And of course, though I did not know him well, every year around Father's Day I think of my own father. He and my mother divorced when I was only two years old, and for most of my life I knew him only through the letters he sent and the…

The second step we'll take to strengthen families is to ensure that working Americans are not impoverished Americans.

Parents will need to make sure their kids turn off the TV once in a while, and put away the video games, and start hitting the books.

Over the last few decades, fundamental changes in the way we work and live have trapped too many American families between an economy that's gone global and a government that's gone AWOL.

In the last six years, over 300,000 black males have lost jobs in the manufacturing sector - the highest rate of any ethnic group.