He speaks their language.

(CNN) — President Barack Obama said Tuesday that economic inequality in America is at “a level we haven’t seen since the Great Depression” and “hurts us all.”

“When middle-class families can no longer afford to buy the goods and services that businesses are selling, it drags down the entire economy, from top to bottom,” Obama said in a speech pushing for Congress to approve provisions of his jobs package.

“Inequality also distorts our democracy,” he continued, sounding a theme expressed by Teddy Roosevelt in a speech more than a century earlier. “It gives an outsized voice to the few who can afford high-priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions [like his AFSCME backers? — ed], and runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder. And it leaves everyone else rightly suspicious that the system in Washington is rigged against them — that our elected representatives aren’t looking out for the interests of most Americans.”

“I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, and when everyone plays by the same rules,” he said. “Those aren’t Democratic or Republican values; 1% values or 99% values. They’re American values, and we have to reclaim them.”