Last week during his weekly address, President Barack Obama called for a raise to the minimum wage and vowed to drive policies in the direction of equal pay and making it easier to pay off student loans.   

“I’m going to keep pushing policies that will create more jobs faster and raise wages faster-policies like rebuilding our infrastructure, making sure women are paid fairly, and making it easier for young people to pay off their student loans,” Obama said. “But one of the simplest and fastest ways to start helping folks get ahead is by raising the minimum wage.”

Minimum wage affects more than just teenagers working their first jobs. A raise in the minimum wage would benefit more than 28 million Americans, with the average worker being 35-years-old, the president said.

“Ask yourself: could you live on $14,500 a year? That’s what someone working full-time on the minimum wage makes,” the president said. “If they’re raising kids, that’s below the poverty line. And that’s not right. A hard days work deserves a fair days pay.”

Obama said earlier this year when the subject of raising the minimum wage was voted on, republicans, “flat-out voted ‘no’.” Since then, 13 states, 21 cities and D.C. have raised their workers’ wages, the president said.

“On Friday, a coalition of citizens-including business leaders, working moms, labor unions and more than 65 mayors-told Republicans in congress to stop blocking a raise for millions of hard-working Americans,” Obama said. “Because we believe that in America, nobody that works full-time should ever have to rise a family in poverty.”