Democratic lawmakers have introduced legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025.
Led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Reps. Bobby Scott, D-Va., and Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., introduced the Raise the Wage Act of 2021 on Tuesday to increase the minimum wage for the first time since 2009 when it hit $7.25.
“The $7.25 an hour federal minimum wage is a starvation wage. No person in America can make it on $8, $10 or $12 an hour,” Sanders said in a press conference announcing the bill. “In the United States of America a job must lift workers out of poverty not keep them in it. We must raise the minimum wage to a living wage — at least $15 an hour.”
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The bill, whose Senate companion is co-sponsored by 37 Democrats, would incrementally increase the minimum wage in fives steps, with the first increase to $9.50, followed a year later to $11 then to $12.50 a year after that. Three years after the bill passes, minimum wage would climb to $14 before hitting $15 in 2025.
Murray, the incoming Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions chair, said Americans working 40-hour workweeks shouldn’t be making only $15,000 a year.
“If we’re committed to an economy that works for everyone, we need one fair, livable wage for everyone — and that includes workers with disabilities, tipped workers and youth workers,” Murray said. “We won’t accept carveouts and we won’t accept leaving anyone behind.”
Under the bill, tipped workers would receive the federal minimal wage, though over a slightly longer schedule, increasing their wages from the current $2.12 to $14.95 by 2026.
The bill will also repeal the sub-minimum wage, ensuring youth workers, who currently earn a minimum of $4.25 an hour, receive the federal minimum wage. It will also end sub-minimum wage certificates for workers with disabilities and gradually increase such wages to the full federal minimum wage.
According to a study of the bill by the Economic Policy Institute, raising the federal minimum wage to $15 would lift the pay of nearly 32 million workers, or 21% of the U.S. workforce.
The study also said that it would aid in narrowing the racial pay gap as 31% of Black Americans and 26% of Latinos make the federal minimum wage.
The introduction of the legislation came after President Joe Biden signed an executive order calling for the hourly minimum wage for federal workers to be increased to $15, which was a companion to his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package proposal that calls for all minimum wage workers to receive this increase.
“No one in America should work 40 hours a week making below the poverty line,” Biden said. “Fifteen dollars gets people above that poverty line.”
The House passed in 2019 a bill to raise the minimum wage to $15 but it faltered in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Jayapal said with Democrats now holding the Senate, now is time for them to get this bill passed.
“Now that we have a Democratic White House and a Democratic Senate, it is time for the People’s House to once again stand up for workers, fight for families and pass the Raise the Wage Act so we finally have a $15 minimum wage all across America,” she said.
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Well, it sounds lovely… but anybody with more than two brain cells firing at the same time knows that all this means is that many people will be let go, pricing for every single thing we buy will be more expensive and it just will not work. Plus you add millions of unemployed illegal aliens taking up those jobs and it will only hurt this country. It’s all relative… meaning, if you have 5 dollars and a widget costs 3, then you only have 2 dollars left. But if you have 7 dollars and that same widget now costs 5, in the end, you will still only have 2 dollars left…
What really ***** is those who make 20/25 per hour and who will only feel the impact of the much higher prices for the same goods, meaning they will end up feeling the pain. bye bye middle class.
On the good side, we won’t have to subsidize free college tuitions because now all the self-governing people of incentives to succeed can just wait till the Democrat Socialists pay Rocket scientists the same wage as trash collectors in their warped definition of Equity. Equality is no longer longer the buzzword to redistribute your property, which is what true Communists are really after. It was never about equality for them, but your equity, in stocks, bonds, your home and any form of wealth or personal property that stands between you and THEIR ability to manipulate your minds and your lives.
Equity Definition:
a: The money value of a property or of an interest in a property in excess of claims or liens against it
b: the common stock of a corporation
c: a risk interest or ownership right in property
d: a right, claim, or interest existing or valid in equity,
True doublespeak liberals will tell that equity is the process, equality the result, but do not be fooled. Losers have no problem having everyone equally poor or stupid as then they can blend into the crowd without shame.
They are about as UN-American as it gets.
“Bye Bye Middle Class” is the whole goal here.
Back in the early 90s, when i worked for 5,25 min wage, prices at stores, for appartments etc, WERE BASED ON THAT. IF min wage gets raised, you CAN BET THAT SO WILL PRICES be raised…
SO THERE WILL BE NO NET benefit to workers pockets..
If the minimum wage is raised to $15 hr, then wouldn’t a company hire employees who are worth that? All these folks with the signs would be replaced>
THEY SHOULD be replaced. JUST Like i say to all those damn teachers, who STILL, even after MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS have been spent to “make schools safe”< still refuse to GO BACK TO SCHOOL, so our kids can learn, IN SCHOOL, should be given a MASS PINK slip.
Yep, raise the minimum wage from $2.12 per hour for tipped workers to $14.95 per hour. Who is going to pay 35 dollars for a hamburger with French fries/ The destruction of these jobs, as one will have a small order machine at their table, so their will be no more waiters and waitresses. A loss of jobs, because the idiot politicians want equality of outcome, not equality under the law.
I know i won’t.. HELL i don’t dine at anywhere, where TIPS ARE MANDATORY…
Later, when there are no more entry-level jobs, young people are all unemployed, and small businesses are closing daily, they will announce that “Capitalism” has failed, offer everyone a “mincome” (Welfare), and tax the hell out of whoever still has private property.
Sure, let’s have a $15 per hour minimum wage, why not? Heck, why not $20 per hour? Do I hear $25 ?
You’ll get 3/4 of the staff laid off, while those who remain will have to do the job of three people.
What a great idea if your goal is more people out of work, more automation taking over previously entry level jobs (more self checkouts, more kiosks at fast food, etc.), and prices on goods and services climbing even higher.
Just barely a week in power and the left is already getting rid of jobs, costing the average American even more for food, shelter, and fuel, and working to ensure that those at the lowest levels of income are hurt even more than in the past.
The worst part is the bleeding heart liberals who voted this mess in think they are doing the right thing.
another weapon of the left.
they are well versed in weaponized tactics like race and gender equality and hate in general
When the wife and I were first married if I made $7.25 per hour, I would have been the envy of all of my friends. Now $7.25 per hour we’re told are starvation wages. Rent for our first furnished apartment in Long Island NY was $100.00 per month and that included a tv. A head of lettuce at the small Italian meat market/supermarket was 13 cents, and the two of us ate like royalty for $20.00 per week. Now an apartment where I live is $1,000.00 per month and more. Raise the minimum wage to $15.00 and the same apartment will be $2,000.00 per month and more. That’s what inflation looks like! Seniors on a fixed income will get killed financially! If you don’t make a wage that you can live on, go to school, learn a trade or a skill, improve yourself. Sometimes I worked two or three jobs until I became skilled enough to earn a much higher wage, and all on a high school diploma. These people clamoring for $15.00 per hour are fools! When we hit hyperinflation, and $1,000.00 won’t buy a loaf of bread, then the fun will really begin, and it won’t be pretty, people will be fighting their friends and neighbors over scrapes! Hopefully, I won’t be here to see it.
Let’s see….. those who had worked years to be of value to their employer to raise up from minimum wage to $15 hr will now be at minimum wage at the same level as those who had just joined the workforce. So logically if the bottom of the wage scale is doubled, should not their wage be doubled?. BTW can an individual offer to work for less as a bargaining ploy to get the job. After all companies who bid on jobs, and retailers trying to move product are always open to negotiating.
There is a mathematical equation that will tell you exactly how many young black men will lose their jobs for every $0.25 raise in the minimum wage. Here’s a novel idea, let’s eliminate this unconstitutional law and let people, employers, and markets decide how much someone will earn.
The govt can’t ever do that.. THEY DON’T WANT us to decide for ourselves, what we do…
When I ask how many will then get off welfare and food stamps ?? I’m called racist. To me, many of them aren’t worth $1.50. I have glaucoma. When I ask a black person at Wal-Mart for help in told , ” just open your eyes and look” I have to search for a white person to help me. I’m only blind in one eye ,so I can see but can’t read prices and sometimes I need help finding things