God has blessed us with smart people, beautiful natural resources and many profitable businesses. We are very fortunate to live in this prosperous corner of the country.

For those reasons, it is inexcusable that our poverty rate has not changed in 40 years and is now slowly increasing. The middle class is starting to suffer from stagnating wages and rising housing costs, causing more of us to slide backward each year. It's appalling that we've tuned out the needs of working-class families.

We believe it is the responsibility of all elected leaders, conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans alike, to fashion an economy that ensures prosperity for everyone who's willing and able to work. This means livable-wage jobs, affordable health care and adequate housing that is in reach of full-time workers.

Many of us are members of different faiths and concerned communities. We are Godly believers and secular alike, many who share Jesus' goals of love and compassion, and embrace his mandate to end human suffering and hopelessness.

It is time we came together and stopped the growing injustice of poverty once and for all. It is a time for all of us to put aside our differences and start to work for the common good -- an end to poverty for anyone who works full-time.

We can begin by providing a livable wage for all working people. The Rev. Paul Sherry said, "A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it." By ensuring that all working people can take care of themselves without government assistance, we can end poverty forever in Washington state and stop the wage slide of the middle class.

With the support of many groups, we will introduce the Ending Poverty in 20 Years bill, which will ensure real wage increases for the middle class and end their slide toward poverty forever. This bill will raise the minimum wage at a slightly faster rate by linking the growth in the minimum wage to the growth in the average state personal income. As the rich get richer, so does everyone else, guaranteeing that every person who works full time will be able to live in a home and raise a family without charity or a taxpayer-supported government program.

In the meantime, we will support an increase to build more affordable housing and we'll work to end predatory lending practices in payday loans that drive people into debt. We will also work to reduce the cost of health care so that it is in reach for working people.

If our proposals are adopted, in 20 years no working person in Washington will need taxpayer help, leaving all of us with smaller government and less taxes. This is the true American dream, consistent with our greatest values -- and it is possible if we work for it.

Each of us will be judged, whether by history or by God, on what we have done with our abundance. We will be judged on whose needs we addressed and on whose needs we ignored. It is time to look in the mirror and ask ourselves, have we worked for the good of all people, especially the least among us?

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