“That’s all we do in the Senate is vote on things like raising the minimum wage.”

That’s what Mitch McConnell had to say to a roomful of millionaires and billionaires, according to leaked audio published by The Nation and The Undercurrent last week, about something as crucial as the wages that millions of Americans make every day.

The secret tape echoes a rising awareness among Americans, from Kentucky to California, that their elected officials are too busy catering to the whims of the rich rather than taking care of the working people who elect them to office. So rather than let that disappointment and anger turn to apathy, the working class is already too busy reclaiming a living wage for itself.

McConnell, facing a fierce mid-term challenge from Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, could be forgiven for stretching the truth: he’s actually been busy preventing a vote on the minimum wage. Four months ago, Senate Republicans filibustered a bill that would’ve increased the federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $10.10. It never would have passed the Republican-dominated House, which is running out of time to ignore its base in favor of intransigence – even 54% of Republicans said in a Memorial Day weekend poll that they want to see the minimum wage go up.

The Senate minority leader has been campaigning on restoring order to Congress: “if you didn’t want to vote, you shouldn’t have come to the Senate,” McConnell said in an interview for Sunday’s New York Times magazine. Meanwhile, Grimes has been bashing McConnell for “voting 17 times against raising the minimum wage” – and it seems to be working: Real Clear Politics calls the Kentucky Senate race a toss-up.

It’s no wonder that people feel so disconnected from the priorities of their politicians. Kentucky’s median worker makes 88 cents on the dollar compared to the average US worker, facing “a decade of lost wages” as wealthy Kentuckians watch their incomes skyrocket. According to that same Memorial Day poll, 71% of all Americans want to see the minimum wage increased, and 55% think it should be increased to $10.10 an hour or higher.

Yet the minimum wage is not just being held up by Republicans in the south:

As long as politicians like McConnell, Cuomo and Faulconer see a closed-door ballroom of billionaires as their base, they aren’t likely to vote to raise the minimum wage, in Congress or in the statehouses, on the left side of the aisle or the right. But nationwide demand needs nationwide action, and now organizers around the country are taking the pay-rate issue out of the hands of elected officials entirely.

Citizens in at least four states and multiple cities will vote on minimum-wage ballot measures this November. Supported by unions, faith groups and a growing, vibrant movement of low-wage workers, these ballot initiatives will offer voters a chance to enact exactly what their elected officials refuse to give them: a raise.

And the states considering a voter-mandated wage hike on Election Day are hardly bastions of liberalism: Alaska, South Dakota, maybe Arkansas and definitely Nebraska, where the governor opposes raising the minimum wage but where it doesn’t matter anymore – the people affected by wages will now get to decide for themselves.

After all, it has been everyday people who put the issue of low wages back on the agenda this year:

The minimum-wage momentum is finally shifting toward the workers. The mayors of Los Angeles and Chicago want to raise the minimum wage to $13 an hour. On a busy Labor Day, incumbents began truly fearing for their political lives, and President Obama said in a speech, “There is no denying a simple truth: America deserves a raise.”

Sixty percent of Americans, in a new poll leading up to Labor Day, now say addressing income inequality by increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 would have a “positive” effect on the economy, and Senate Democrats are reportedly mustering the courage to force another vote. Mitch McConnell not withstanding, it seems that the American people think voting to increase the minimum wage is an extremely important thing for Congress to do – indeed, the least that it could do.

Working people are tired of waiting for Congress to decide which side it’s on. They’re taking action, going out on strike, building power blocs in the workplace, in their cities and states. The minimum wage should be a winning issue this November; now politicians have to buck their billionaire donors and make it a priority, too.