A new poll finds that 80 percent of Americans, including 62 percent of Republicans and 80 percent of Independents, support raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour and indexing it to the cost of living, as proposed in the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013,reports a press release by the National Employment Law Project (NELP) Action Fund, a project of The Advocacy Fund.

According to the poll by Hart Research, 74 percent of Americans consider raising the minimum wage to be an important legislative priority for Congress to address over the next year. Democratic leaders in Congress have indicated they plan to make raising the federal minimum wage a high-profile issue ahead of the 2014 midterm elections,

The new poll also finds that Congressional candidates who support legislation raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour gain a substantial 36 percent net advantage (51 percent more likely to support; 15 percent less).

The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013 would raise the federal minimum wage from the current rate of $7.25 to $10.10 per hour by 2015, and it would provide for annual increases to the rate in future years to keep pace with the rising cost of living, a reform known as “indexing” that ten states have already successfully implemented. The bill would also raise the minimum wage for tipped workers from its current low rate of $2.13 per hour, where it has been frozen since 1991, to 70 percent of the full minimum wage.