House Democrats unveiled their goals for the legislative session today, echoing the governor's funding priorities for roll health care, affordable housing and universal pre-K.

But as our June Leffler reports, House Democrats are also calling for an increased minimum wage and a progressive income tax.

Families are working hard.

They are still falling behind.

The price of everything is up.

The price of groceries, the price of health care, the price of utilities.

Everything's gone up and wages haven't kept pace.

We want a Kentucky where workers earn pay.

That reflects today's economic reality.

And that's why we're fighting to increase the minimum wage through gradual, predictable steps to $17 an hour by 2029, with future increases tied to inflation.

So your wages always keep up with the cost of living.

House Democrats propose an alternative income tax policy.

Right now, the gap between everyday Kentuckians and the wealthiest 5% continues to widen.

Many families feel they are carrying the load, while those at the top are keeping all the breaks.

So we're asking the wealthiest 5% of Kentuckians, whose average income is $650,000 a year, to contribute a bit more in income taxes, and they would be taxed at a rate of 6%.

Everyone else can still enjoy the march to zero.

The minority floor leader wants the general Assembly to budget for federal cuts to snap.

With new federal requirements shifting administrative burdens to the states.

We must be prepared to make sure that no Kentuckian goes hungry.

We've got to be prepared.

And the way we say you prepare is you put your money where your mouth is, you put in the budget $66 million in 2027 to make sure that people get Snap benefits and $50 million in 2026.

Members also proposed financial protections regarding medical debt.

The bill that I filed for the second year in a row is House Bill 73.

It is related to medical debt and actually caps medical debt at 3% interest rate.

No one chooses to be sick.

And so making sure that we have boundaries on what is able to be billed so that people can plan and pay those bills in a timely fashion is really important.

We used to have protections, and that your medical debt did not have to show up on your credit report.

And that didn't change just by legislation or what happened in D.C.. There was a federal court in Texas that struck down that protection.

And several states already have protections in place they put in there.

It's a good thing about having a state system that can come back.

Those things up.

And we have the opportunity to do that here in Kentucky.

As Representative Rourke's already said, when you get sick, you need to get yourself taken care of and you should not be penalized for that.

So we're going to make sure that we don't have any compulsory reporting to their credit agencies.

That is going to be impacting your credit scores because you got sick or got into an accident.

You should still be able to afford a home.

You should still be able to start a business.

Democrats say this is one of a dozen measures with some Republican support for Kentucky addition.

I'm Jen Leffler.