California lawmakers took another step toward raising the state's minimum wage on Monday when the Senate approved a proposal to increase the hourly rate to $11 in 2016 and $13 in 2017.

In a 23-15 vote, the California State Senate passed Senate Bill 3, which would also tie minimum wage to the rate of inflation beginning in 2019. The measure will now head to the Assembly for a vote.

"The president of the United States has defined income inequality as the defining challenge of our time," said the bill's author Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, according to The Sacramento Bill. "Wages are growing at the slowest rate relative to corporate profits in the history of the United States of America. We must do more to address this, and we can."

Sen. Leno's measure comes two years after Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation to hike minimum wage to $9 an hour, giving California one of the highest minimum wage rates in the country. It is also set rise to $10 an hour next year.

However, Leno argued that earning $9 or $10 an hour is still not enough for the state's 8 million workers to afford the cost of living in California.

"Full-time workers in this state should not be forced onto public assistance simply because they earn the minimum wage," Leno said in a statement, reports The Associated Press.

He also argues that the increase would stimulate the economy since employees who make earn more money will spend it on housing, food and consumer products.

"There are thought leaders on the conservative right who support increasing the minimum wage," Leno said. "We taxpayers subsidize employers who pay sub-poverty wages," because those workers get public assistance for housing, food and health care.

Republicans, on the other hand, opposed Leno's bill, which the California Chamber of Commerce has labeled a "job killer."

"It's a capitalistic society," said Republican State Sen. John Moorlach of Costa Mesa. "We need to honor the work of those that are creating the jobs, that are paying the taxes. ... With a minimum wage increase, you are attacking business people who are subsidizing this state and this nation."