A newly unveiled proposal would raise the national minimum wage to $17 an hour.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, introduced the bill ahead of its committee markup in June.

“It is time to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. As chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, that is exactly what I intend to see happen,” Sanders said at a Thursday press conference.

The federal minimum wage was last raised in 2009 to $7.25 an hour. Since then, it has lost nearly 30 percent of its purchasing power, according to Economic Policy Institute data cited by Sanders.

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Alabama is one of five states that have not adopted a state minimum wage. Two states, Georgia and Wyoming, have a minimum wage of below $7.25, according to the National Conference of State Legislators. In all seven of these states, the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour applies.

“Nobody in this country can survive on $7.25 an hour,” Sanders said Thursday. “Maybe some of my colleagues in Congress might want to live for a month on $7.25 an hour and see what’s that like.”

Since 2013, 13 states – New Jersey, South Dakota, Arkansas, Alaska, Washington, Maine, Colorado, Arizona, Missouri, Florida, Nevada and Nebraska  – have passed measures to increase their minimum wages.

States with the highest minimum wage are Washington ($15.74); California ($15.50); Massachusetts ($15); New York ($14.20) and New Jersey ($14.13.)