Biden rallies union members in Pittsburgh

WASHINGTON — Vice President Biden kicked off a Labor Day parade in Pittsburgh Monday by urging union leaders to organize workers to help raise stagnant wages and save the middle class.

"There wouldn't be a single basic right from a 40-hour week to sick leave...were it not for labor," Biden said. "You built the middle class, that's not an exaggeration. And as you've declined, the middle class has declined. So there's a simple correlation: We build labor, we build America. We build labor, we build the middle class."

Biden's words sounded like a classic stump speech from a Democratic presidential candidate, but the vice president did not address speculation that he might be a candidate in 2016.

On Thursday, Biden said the biggest factor in his decision on whether to run for president is whether he and his family "have the emotional energy to run." He and his family have been mourning his son, Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in May.

"The honest-to-God answer is, I just don't know," the vice president said during an appearance in Atlanta.

Biden donned a United Steel Workers of America cap in Pittsburgh and launched into a passionate, populist speech in which he declared, "I'm mad, I'm angry," as he talked about how 1% of America owns 40% of the wealth.

He said the tax code is not fair and wealthy people aren't paying their fair share.

"The level playing field doesn't exit," Biden said.

He said that eliminating tax breaks for "trust fund babies" would pay for everyone who wants to go to community college to go for free.

The vice president said he would never have been elected to the Senate in 1972 if it wasn't for the support of the steel workers' union. Then Biden was a 29-year-old local official challenging an incumbent Republican senator; he won in an upset.

"We have an expression where I grew up, you go home with them that brung you to the dance," Biden said.