During the State of the Union address President Barack Obama indicated that he hoped to raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 from its current stance of $7.25.

As it stands, the only state in the U.S. with a minimum wage higher than $9.00 is Washington.

Were the increase to go through, every other state in the nation will have to adapt.

Already people have come out to label the program a job killer, and the companies that will be impacted most should the policy become law will be the companies that employ a large quantity of low-income workers making at or slightly above the federal minimum wage.

The National Employment Law Project studies industries and identifies companies where employees have low wages. In July 2012 the group released a study listing the largest U.S. companies that primarily have low-wage employees.

Note that there's no hard numbers on how many of these companies workers are making the exact minimum wage. And the column of the US Workforce refers to all of these companies' US workers, not just their workers making a low wage.

Here are the top 20 low-wage employers in the U.S.: