Republicans’ argument that increasing the minimum wage would lead to job losses received backup from a nonpartisan report released Tuesday.

A $10.10 per hour minimum wage would cut between 500,000 and 1 million jobs, the report by the Congressional Budget Office found. But it estimates that the wage hike would move about 900,000 low-income people above the poverty threshold.

"This CBO report reiterates a fundamental principle of our free market economy: Increasing the minimum wage eliminates jobs, cuts off the bottom rung of the economic ladder and reduces opportunity," Sen. Lamar Alexander said in a prepared statement.

"Instead of minimum wages, the goal should be higher family incomes," he said. "To do that, we should liberate the free enterprise system from Obama regulations and make it easier to create jobs, provide more job training and offer more choices of good schools to children of low-income parents."

The Democratic legislation will be the focus of a protest in Miller Plaza today. In a news release, Organizing for Action said it will call on Alexander and Rep. Chuck Fleischmann to raise the minimum wage and "expand economic opportunity for millions of Americans."

"We should all be able to agree: If you work full time in America, you shouldn’t have to live in poverty. But the reality is, a minimum wage worker has a yearly salary of just $14,500," the announcement said.