US President Barack Obama has called for a greater focus on helping African American women who, compared to other women, have lower-paying jobs and are facing higher rates of illness and incarceration.

“I’m focusing on women tonight because I want them to know how much we appreciate them, how much we admire them, how much we love them,” Obama said at the annual Congressional Black Caucus dinner on Saturday.

His speech was mainly framed around issues such as raising the minimum wage, fair policing and criminal justice reform that would help close the gap between black women and their peers.

“We are going to have to close those economic gaps…We’ve got to do more than say…we’d put a woman on the ten dollar bill” Obama said.

With the presence of first lady Michelle Obama and former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in the audience at the annual CBC dinner, the president declared that equal pay for women is “everybody’s issue.”

The president allocated most of his pitch to minority women and called them “the foot soldiers” in the civil-rights movement.

They still do not enjoy the same economic opportunity as others, while the sacrifices they have historically made to advance the nation have been without much recognition, he noted.

He said all Americans “are the beneficiaries of a long line of strong black women who helped carry our country,” adding “Black women have been a part of every great movement in American history.”

He urged a raise in the minimum wage and expanding paid leave, among other initiatives, to help minority women get ahead.

“It makes a mockery of our economy when black women make 30 few cents for every dollar a white man earns,” Obama said.

The president further maintained that the incarceration rate for black women is twice that of white women and described a “sinister sexual abuse to prison pipeline” in which traumatized women went on to commit crimes.

He called for more effort to stop violence and abuse against women “in every community and on every campus.”