But when it comes to the minimum wage, the 41-year-old drug rehabilitation specialist from Philadelphia sounds a different tune. He'd like to see Congress aid the working poor by raising the federal pay minimum from $4.25 an hour. "I don't know of anyone trying to support a family who can get by on that," [John] Trendler said.

Despite stiff resistance from many business lobbyists and Republican lawmakers, an increase in the federal minimum wage appears more and more likely because of an irresistible force: overwhelming public support. Recent polls show that more than three-quarters of American adults favor such a raise.

"Even conservatives understand that you have to set some kind of floor on wages and make work pay," said Richard Holober, campaign manager for the Liveable Wage Coalition, a union-financed effort to put an initiative to raise California's minimum wage on the November ballot. "In a way, it's a very conservative approach to the war on poverty."