Level to which President Obama called for increasing the federal minimum hourly wage in this week's State of the Union address, while indexing it to rise automatically with inflation: $9
Current federal minimum hourly wage: $7.25
Annual income of someone who works full-time at today's minimum wage, with no vacation: $15,080
Amount to which that would increase under the president's plan: $18,720
If the minimum hourly wage had kept pace with inflation since its real-value high in the late 1960s, level it would be at today: $10.56
Of the jobs lost during the recession, percentage that were in lower-wage occupations: 21
Of the jobs gained during the recovery, percentage that were in lower-wage occupations: 58
Number of workers who would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage: 21 million
Portion of minimum-wage workers who are women: almost 2/3
Portion who are parents: 1/4
Percentage who are black: 14.2
Who are Hispanic: 23.6
Who are white: 56.1
Amount that a proposed 2012 hike in the minimum wage to $9.80 an hour would have increased Gross Domestic Product, which measures a nation's standard of living: about $25 billion
Number of new jobs it would have created: 100,000
Number of states that set minimum wages higher than the federal standard: 19
Of those states, number in the South: 1*
Number of states that set minimum wages lower than the federal standard: 4
Of those states, number in the South: 2**
Number of states that index their minimum wage to inflation: 9
Of those states, number in the South: 1***
According to a 2012 survey, percentage of likely voters who support raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour and indexing it to inflation: 73
Percentage of Democrats who support such an increase: 91
Percentage of independents: 74
Percentage of Republicans: 50
Number of business leaders and small business owners who signed a statement supporting the last increase in the federal minimum wage in 2007: nearly 1,000
Number of studies that have found raising the minimum wage does not cause an increase in unemployment, as claimed by Republicans opposed to the president's proposal: over 20
* Florida ($7.79/hour)
** Arkansas ($6.25.hour) and Georgia ($5.15/hour)
*** Florida
