A group of House Democrats are seeking to increase the minimum wage to $9.80 per hour in order to help shrink the ever-increasing gap between the wealthiest Americans and struggling workers. This modest increase to the current $7.25 per hour would help catch the wage up to the rate of inflation, since the buying power of the 1968 minimum wage is the equivalent of about $10.55 an hour today.

A new report from the Economic Policy Institute finds that, while raising the minimum wage to the proposed $9.80 level would have a significant impact on about 28 million low-income workers, it would especially benefit women. As the report puts it, the fact that “women comprise 54.5 percent of workers who would be affected by a potential minimum-wage increase makes it a women’s issue”:

The impact on women varies by state, ranging from the highest percentage of affected women in Mississippi — where 64.4 percent of the low-wage workers who would benefit from a minimum wage hike are female — to 49.3 percent in both California and Nevada. However, California and Nevada are the only states where women do not make up the majority of the low-income workers who would be positively affected by a higher wage.

Despite the fact that millions of women would see their lives improve with an increased minimum wage, conservatives oppose initiatives to raise it, using tired arguments that it will kill jobs and hurt small businesses. In fact, studies show that a higher minimum wage does not impede job growth, especially because the nation’s biggest and most profitable corporations are the biggest employers of minimum wage employees.

Our guest blogger is Harsha Nahata, an intern at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan has gained an undeserved reputation as a “fiscal hawk,” touting his “Path to Prosperity” budget as a responsible plan to rein in what he describes as a “path to debt and decline.” But Ryan’s votes in Congress show that he is as guilty as anyone of running up the nation’s debt.

A Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis shows that Ryan voted to add a grand total of $6.8 trillion to the federal debt during his time in Congress, voting for at least 65 bills that either reduced revenue or increased spending.

From 2001 to 2008, Congress passed legislation that increased the national deficit by a total of $4 trillion — the number grows to $6 trillion if you add in the how much those policies have cost through 2011. Ryan voted for 90 percent of these deficit increasing bills.

What did Ryan vote to spend on? Here is a break-down of his votes:

– Beginning with the Bush tax cuts, since 2001 Ryan has voted to add $2.5 trillion worth of tax cuts to the deficit.

– In the last 11 years, Paul Ryan voted for every bill that called for an increase in defense spending. In total, this has added $1.9 trillion to the deficit.

– Paul Ryan also voted to increase non-defense discretionary spending — the very thing he is pushing to cut now. He voted to spend $270 billion on Medicare Part D (all of which was unpaid for). He also added $80 billion to the deficit by voting for an agriculture bill in 2002, and he added another $20 billion in 2003 when he voted for changes to military retirement. Lastly, he voted for increased borrowing authority for flood insurance, adding yet another $17 billion to the deficit.

Plus, Ryan’s plan won’t really balance the budget — at least not for the foreseeable future. The Tax Policy Center calculates that under Ryan’s budget plan, the federal government would only raise revenue totaling 15.8 percent of GDP. This would still make the deficit 4 percent of GDP by 2022.