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Sen. Sherrod Brown Previews State Of The Union

Posted on: Tuesday, January 28, 2014

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As President Obama prepares to deliver his "State of the Union" speech Tuesday, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown is already calling on Congress to implement one of the major ideas expected to be addressed by the president.

Brown is calling on Congress to pass the Fair Minimum Wage act which would increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour.

"Americans havent had a minimum wage increase since 2007," Brown said, "It's almost always been bipartisan. We're simply asking the minimum wage get up to the level it was several years ago before inflation."

Brown's guest for the State of the Union address is Cincinnati resident Liz Dandrige. Dandrige, a Head Start employee,  supports an increase the minimum wage and says that would make a big difference.

"When you have more income, you can do more things to improve your life, improve your childrens lives," Dandrige said.

According to numbers provided by Brown's office, raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would boost GDP by nearly $33 billion and generate 140,000 new jobs.

Media outlets have reported that President Obama is already taking an executive action by requiring all federal contractors be paid that same $10.10 an hour.

Brown told WOUB he played a part in the move.

"I was one of the people that asked the president to do this," Brown said, "He has authority under the constitution and under the powers Congress gave him to increase the minimum wage for those workers who work for contractors where they get federal dollars."

However House Speaker John Boehner, R-OH, warned the president about the limits of his executive power during a press conference Tuesday morning.

"This idea that he's just going to go it alone, I have to remind him we do have a constitution. And the Congress writes the laws, and the president’s job is to execute the laws faithfully. And if he tries to ignore this he's going to run into a brick wall,” Boehner said.

According to an NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll released Tuesday, 63 percent of Amercians said they support raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.