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Dec. 5, 2013: Protesters calling for higher wages for fast-food workers outside a McDonald's in Oakland, Calif.REUTERS

President Obama on Saturday resumed his push to make millions more U.S. workers eligible for overtime pay, amid continued criticism that his efforts to close the countrys so-called income gap will hurt U.S. businesses.

Our businesses have created 8.7 million new jobs over the past four years, Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. But in many ways, the trends that have battered the middle class for decades have grown even starker.

The president earlier this week began touting a plan to update rules on which workers are eligible for time-and-a-half pay for their extra work. And he intends to sign a presidential memorandum Thursday directing the Labor Department to propose rules that expand the number of employees who can get overtime pay.

He argues that some salaried workers are now paid less than the minimum wage.

Thats not fair, he said Saturday.

Obamas effort is just part of his so-called Year of Action and his larger, second-term agenda to close the income gap.

Im doing everything I can, with or without Congress, to expand opportunity for more Americans, the president said Saturday, as he has said since his State of the Union address last month.

Obama has already used an executive order to increase the minimum wage for federal contract employees, and he has tasked the Democrat-controlled Senate to pass legislation that would increase the minimum wage for all Americans, from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour.

The presidents efforts also serve his and fellow Democrats political ends during this midterm election year, giving them a populist message that also includes a call for better pay among women.

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Obama push for expansion of overtime pay met with criticism from GOP