—­In some areas, the jobless rate is still three or four times the national average.

—­Violence has shown its face in some of our cities.

—­Crime increases on our streets.

—­Income for farm workers remains far behind that for urban workers; and parity for our farmers who produce our food is still just a hope—­not an achievement.

—­New housing construction is far less than we need—­to assure decent shelter for every family.

—­Hospital and medical costs are high, and they are rising.

—­Many rivers—­and the air in many cities—­remain badly polluted.  And our citizens suffer from breathing that air.

We have lived with conditions like these for many, many years.  But much that we once accepted as inevitable, we now find absolutely intolerable.

In our cities last summer, we saw how wide is the gulf for some Americans between the promise and the reality of our society.

We know that we cannot change all of this in a day.  It represents the bitter consequences of more than three centuries.

But the issue is not whether we can change this; the issue is whether we will change this.

Well, I know we can.  And I believe we will.

This then is the work we should do in the months that are ahead of us in this Congress.

The first essential is more jobs, useful jobs for tens of thousands who can become productive and can pay their own way.

Our economy has created 7 1/2 million new jobs in the past 4 years.  It is adding more than a million and a half new jobs this year.

Through programs passed by the Congress, job training is being given tonight to more than a million Americans in this country.

This year, the time has come when we must get to those who are last in line—­the hard-core unemployed—­the hardest to reach.

Employment officials estimate that 500,000 of these persons are now unemployed in the major cities of America.  Our objective is to place these 500,000 in private industry jobs within the next 3 years.

To do this, I propose a $2. 1 billion manpower program in the coming fiscal year—­a 25 percent increase over the current year.  Most of this increase will be used to start a new partnership between government and private industry to train and to hire the hard-core unemployed persons.  I know of no task before us of more importance to us, to the country, or to our future.

Another essential is to rebuild our cities.

Last year the Congress authorized $662 million for the Model Cities program.  I requested the full amount of that authorization to help meet the crisis in the cities of America.  But the Congress appropriated only $312 million—­less than half.

This year I urge the Congress to honor my request for model cities funds to rebuild the centers of American cities by granting us the full amount that you in the Congress authorized—­$1 billion.