A topic I feel strongly about is a proposal to increase the federal minimum wage. The currency value to the federal minimum wage has declined 25% since 1968. The current minimum wage of $7.25 leaves an adult and two children just a few thousand dollars below the poverty threshold. This is unacceptable. A study shows that if the minimum wage were to be increased today, 900,000 Americans would be lifted out of poverty by 2025. Inflation in the country has been on a steady incline and the wage was last changed in 2009. To put things in perspective, something that cost $20 in 2009, costs somewhere around $23.75 in 2021, and that number has probably increased since then.