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Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (R) has a message for his party: If you're really for the middle class, prove it by raising the minimum wage every once in a while.

"If you're going to talk the talk about being for the middle class and the working person, if we have the minimum wage, it should be reasonably adjusted from time to time," Pawlenty, CEO of the Financial Services Roundtable, said Wednesday in an appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe.

Congressional Republicans have stonewalled Democratic-led efforts to raise the federal minimum wage since late last year. President Obama made raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour a cornerstone of his State of the Union address, and then by executive order hiked the rate for federal contractors to that level.