In his State of the Union address in February 2012, President Obama called on Congress to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9 an hour. “Even with the tax relief we’ve put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line,” he said. “That’s wrong.”

Over the summer, Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, introduced the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013 that would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour and automatically index it to the cost of living. In an opinion piece for Politico, Harkin said raising the minimum wage is “good for workers, good for businesses, and good for our economy.”

In November 2013, New Jersey became the 20th state to establish a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum as voters there overwhelmingly approved a ballot question that raised the hourly rate to $8.25. The measure also amends the state’s constitution to tie future increases to inflation. New Jersey’s new law has broad public support. In addition, earlier this fall, the California legislature approved an increase in the minimum wage from $8 an hour to $10 an hour by 2016.

 …