The State of the Union, beer by beer

As the State of the Union played on mute at the Whiskey Trader, a pub frequented by financial workers in midtown Manhattan, a Wells Fargo Securities employee told Al Jazeera that he felt President Barack Obama needed to reduce financial regulation to help regular folks. 

"There's too much regulation," John Purlingame, 48, said as Obama gestured on the television behind him. "Nobody's lending to the little guy."

Purlingame said that banks can't figure out how to lend around rules imposed by the Dodd-Frank Act, which was written to rein in Wall Street, and as a result "there's too much capital in the banks," preventing lenders from making car and home loans.

Government involvement in banking, which had once been freewheeling, he said, had become too intense and the "pendulum had swung too far in the opposite direction." 

As for raising the minimum wage, Purlingame said he wasn't sure a pay hike was necessary across the board.

"It might be right for some markets and some cities," he said. 

But others in The Whiskey Trader had a different view. 

"I don't think kids today working on $10 an hour have the shot I had," said Terry Deschaine, 58, in New York with his brother to see his first Super Bowl on Sunday.

Deschaine, a building project manager from Monticello, Minn., recalled how he was making $3.50 an hour when he was out of high school, in the 1970s, and was shocked that the minimum had only risen by a few dollars as inflation galloped along.

"I'd like to see the minimum wage raised to $10. And that's only a small carrot. People can't make it on $10 an hour and raise a family."

However, another bar-goer, Grant Deady, 41, a publicist in town from Chicago for the Super Bowl, said he wasn't particularly impressed.

"The thing that I find disturbing is that it sounds like the same speech, the same cadence, individuals stories, struggles. It's falling on deaf ears."