Advocates for the side of raising the minimum wage in the recent national debate are taking their cause on the road Monday as Americans United for Change kick off its Give America a Raise bus tour.

The liberal advocacy group is starting their tour in Bangor, Maine before reaching out to 18 cities through the Northeast, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, according to Al Jazeera America.

Americans United for Change, along with other civil rights organizations, are advocating the minimum wage in the U.S. be raised to $10.10 an hour.

Americans United for Change President Brad Woodhouse said in a press release that raising the minimum wage would be advantageous for both America's working class and the U.S. economy.

"Raising the minimum wage would provide a needed boost, not just for the millions of struggling low-wage American workers that can barely survive on $7.25, but for the U.S. economy as a whole," Woodhouse said. "It will create jobs because it puts money in the pockets of workers who will quickly inject it back into the economy."

In February, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that raised the minimum wage for all federal contractors from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour. The order will only affect new contracts, but will raise 250,000 workers' wages, Al Jazeera reported.

On one side of the debate stand staunch Republicans who oppose raising the wage because they say it will result in more businesses reducing the size of their staff if they're having to pay them more money.

Democrats, on the other hand, say the more money businesses can give their employees will go toward local economies in the workers' communities.

According to Al Jazeera, at the beginning of the year, 11 states raised the minimum wage for its workers while a few cities, such as San Francisco, have acted on their own.

On Thursday the San Francisco City Council voted to raise the minimum wage in the city from $10.74 to $12.30 an hour by 2017.

The District of Columbia currently pays its workers the most in the nation, as its minimum wage is set at  $11.50 an hour.

Last month, the Congressional Budget Office released a report revealing that, while increasing the minimum wage by 2016 would yield to higher wages for more than 16.5 million workers, it also estimates a loss of roughly 500,000 jobs because of higher costs to business owners and higher costs of goods and services.

Christine Owens, National Employment Law Project executive director, told Al Jazeera that the CBO report's findings regarding loss of jobs were off base.

"The effect of raising the minimum wage is one of the most thoroughly studied topics in modern economics," Owens said, adding, "and the vast majority of the more than 1,000 estimates continued in studies dating back to 1972 show no significant adverse effects on employment."