Progressive members of the House and Senate are making an ambitious bid today to help millions of Americans who are struggling to make ends meet: They are introducing a bill that would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Such an effort can’t come soon enough.

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Over 45 million Americans do not earn enough income to afford their basic needs -- more than the total populations of California and Oregon combined. Millions live in impoverished conditions without regular access to food and water, safe housing or stable employment.

But the priorities of these Americans have been actively ignored or routinely blocked by our government, even though recent polls have found that 75 percent of Americans support raising the minimum wage so people can have fruitful lives. We have yet to see Congress pass a bill that would help millions of children eat three square meals a day and millions of parents pay their bills and afford a place to live.

If passed, today’s proposal to increase the minimum wage can reverse that history.

The reason the needs of working Americans has been ignored is straightforward -- follow the money. Special interest groups and political arms of giant corporations have been actively combating our efforts to turn the minimum wage into a living wage so millions of Americans are not forced to choose between buying groceries and paying heating and gas bills. Instead of investing in the livelihood and well-being of the people who keep their businesses running, corporations are spending millions of dollars on elections and our government officials. With all the presidential candidates reporting their fundraising hauls over the last week, anyone looking can easily find hundreds of contributions from enemies of the living wage.

A person paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour will earn $15,080 before taxes. This insultingly low wage is inadequate to take care of one’s family and nearly always requires a second job.

This is why scores of Americans -- mothers, fathers, home care workers, retail workers and other minimum-wage earners -- across the country have joined the Fight for 15 campaign to establish a living wage that would allow them to actually care for the needs of their loved ones. Already cities such as San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles have listened and approved increases to $15 an hour. New York State is expected to consider raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour for fast-food workers.

A father of two like Savino Vidals who spends 72 hours a week working at a local Brooklyn grocery store doesn’t have time to call his member of Congress to support legislation that would raise the minimum wage. He is too busy choosing between this month’s rent and his own dinner. No one should have to make that choice.

Meanwhile, the US Chamber of Commerce, which opposes any raise of the minimum wage, spent $35.4 million in the 2014 elections and another $124 million in lobbying that year. And that’s just what we know about. It doesn’t even include the Chamber’s “dark” money that works around our currently lacking government transparency laws. The money of corporate interests is dwarfing the voices, of not only millions of impoverished Americans, but working and middle-class Americans who can’t afford this type of “free speech.”

As a result, we’ve ended up with an economy that is out of balance and a system that not only leaves Americans like Savino without the capacity to adequately provide for their families, it has boxed him and others out of the political process. Without money to buy his way into our democratic government to guarantee politicians pick up his phone calls, Savino is left voiceless.

That is the current state of democracy in America. The reality of this situation is that there are corporations and CEOs who have taken advantage and essentially removed the rest of us from having a voice in the process.

Political contributions are the new form of a pay-to-play political system that discriminates against those who need their government’s attention the most. Barriers to success are hurting working Americans, regardless of their race, religion, gender or political party. It doesn’t matter whether your family immigrated yesterday or came over on the Mayflower.

America’s top 1 percent controls 40 percent of our nation’s wealth and they’ve used their power and influence to rig the game in their favor, but our public officials shouldn’t only be beholden to corporations and a greedy few wealthy private citizens funneling secret money.

The president's time in office is almost over. Now is the time to start us down a path to fixing an economic and political system that is out of whack. Now is the time to deal with the dark money problem, while at the same time helping Americans working to provide for their families.

We hope the president will sign an executive order to get dark money out of the federal contracting process. Democracy means one voice one vote, not one dollar one vote. This executive order is a necessary first step to show corporations and CEOs that they can't unduly influence our government by using dark money.

At the same time, Congress has a chance to pass the most ambitious proposal yet to help Americans trying to make ends meet by increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Both are first steps that show people matter more than profit.

Bhargava is the executive director of Center for Community Change, a non-profit that focuses on ending economic inequality and eliminating poverty.