(Photo credit: Flickr user psd)

Last night, President Obama made the proposal to raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour and then to index it to inflation. This would be a wage increase for workers in every single state except Washington.

While Republicans have already stated their intention to obstruct this proposal, they should know that raising the minimum wage is actually wildly popular. Polling conducted by Lake Research in February 2012 found that voters actually want a proposal even more progressive than Obama’s suggestion.

Their poll found that 73 percent of voters want to see the minimum wage raised to $10 an hour by 2014. This includes 50 percent of Republicans.