By Donald Norcross and Analilia Mejia

We will be attending President Trump's State of the Union address on Tuesday together. Our aim is to highlight the issues facing America's working families because, in his first year in office, Trump has left us behind.

His vision of a divided America has ignored the interest of working and middle class families in favor of the continued enrichment of the wealthy and well-connected.

Despite all his talk, Trump has done nothing to actually improve the lives of New Jersey's families.

In fact, he's done the opposite by forcing a massive tax increase on our state, singling out states like New Jersey to bear the cost of a so-called tax reform bill that will benefit the richest Americans and Wall Street.

If Trump were serious about helping America's working families, he would join the fight to raise wages, enact common sense paid sick, family and medical leave policies, and make America more affordable for vulnerable families.

All of these policies are widely supported by Americans, but the Trump presidency has thus far been dedicated to stymying progress or outright attacking these policies. It's long past time for our elected leaders to stand up for what hard-working Americans need and deserve.

We need to raise wages and strengthen protections for workers and their families across our nation.

Republicans control Congress and the White House. If any of them truly believed Trump's populist rhetoric, they would immediately lead on raising the minimum wage to $15. After all, they rewrote the American tax code in a matter of weeks in order to benefit their billionaire backers.

Instead, Republicans have focused on directing wealth upward, leaving the rest of us to shoulder the cost.

Just this week, Oxfam International found that 82 percent of all wealth created last year went to the richest one percent. For the other 99 percent, the system is rigged. Wages are stagnant, the cost-of-living is rising, and hard-working people are left with little to no economic security.

Raising the federal minimum wage is the single most important legislation we can pass to lift up the American workforce.

It's been more than a decade since Congress last voted to increase the minimum wage. Right now, we can help some 40 million Americans get a fair day's pay for a hard day's work by passing the Raise the Wage Act to increase the federal minimum wage with common-sense predictability over the next seven years to $15 an hour.

We're doing our part in New Jersey, where Gov. Phil Murphy is committed to raising the wage to $15, which means close to one million New Jerseyans will receive a pay increase.

Another 1.2 million folks will no longer fear an economic downward spiral if they or a loved one gets sick because Murphy plans to expand paid family medical leave and adopt a statewide paid sick day policy.

But we also need to take these actions on the national level. Contrary to the current administration's beliefs, the federal government should not just advance corporate interests, and, instead, must fulfill its duty to ensure a basic quality of life for all Americans.

When you and your family see us walking into Tuesday's State of the Union, please know that there are people in that room looking out for New Jersey's families, working to fix the rigged system and fighting to raise your wages.

Rep. Donald Norcross, a Democrat, represents New Jersey's 1st Congressional District.

Analilia Mejia is executive director of New Jersey Working Families Alliance.

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