Bernie Sanders unveils push for $17-an-hour federal minimal wage, citing state will increase
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday introduced Democrats’ plans to mark up laws to extend the federal minimal wage to $17 an hour, pointing to a rise in the price of residing.
Exterior the U.S. Capitol, Sanders, a Vermont impartial and chairman of the Well being, Training, Labor and Pensions Committee, stated the panel will vote June 14 on a invoice that might improve the federal minimal wage of $7.25 an hour to $17 an hour over a five-year interval.
That aim is a $2-an-hour improve from labor organizers’ previous marketing campaign of “Combat for $15.”
“Frankly, it’s embarrassing for us to be right here as we speak and have to speak a couple of actuality the place folks have to work two or three jobs to place meals on the desk for the children,” Sanders stated, surrounded by advocates for the next minimal wage. “You’ve got billionaires who don’t know what to do with their cash, shopping for yachts and going off into outer area, so the time is lengthy overdue.”
Sanders argued that the concept is fashionable no matter social gathering affiliation and cited Nebraska, a deep purple state that authorised a rise within the state minimal wage to $15 an hour, and Florida, which leans purple however has additionally handed an improve in its minimal wage to $15 an hour by 2026.
He stated the U.S. Senate “goes to push it as shortly and laborious as we will,” however didn’t specify if it could be dropped at the Senate ground for a vote. There’s additionally the hurdle of the 60-vote threshold when Democrats have a slim 50-seat majority.
And with a Republican-controlled Home, it’s unlikely to be introduced up by Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican.
Heidi Shierholz, the president of the left-leaning Financial Coverage Institute, stated on the press convention that the financial influence of a rise to the federal minimal wage is among the most-studied topics in economics.
“The load of that proof exhibits that (when the) minimal wage will increase, they increase the wages of our lowest wage-workers, they scale back inequality, they scale back poverty, they scale back little one poverty, they scale back gender wage gaps, they scale back racial wage gaps as a result of Black and brown employees, because of the broad impacts of structural racism on our labor markets, are disproportionately concentrated within the lowest-wage jobs,” Shierholz stated.
Staff within the South
Financial researchers have discovered that a rise to the federal minimal wage would significantly profit low-income employees within the South.
A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Funds Workplace discovered {that a} increase to a $15-an-hour wage by 2025 would almost carry 1,000,000 folks out of poverty and greater than 17 million employees would expertise a wage improve by 2025.
Shierholz stated due to inflation, a $15 minimal wage isn’t ample.
“So simply to present you an thought, $17 as we speak has roughly the identical buying energy as $15 did simply two years in the past,” she stated.
A 40-hour work week with a minimal wage of $15 an hour comes out to an annual wage of about $31,000, earlier than taxes. That’s simply above the poverty line for a household of 4, which is $30,000. A 40-hour work week of $17 an hour would come out to an annual wage of about $35,000 earlier than taxes.
“Mama Cookie” Bradley, a longtime labor organizer from Durham, North Carolina, who attended the press convention, stated {that a} $17-an-hour wage in her metropolis would imply residents would be capable of afford lease, meals and little one care prices.
“It could make life much more simpler,” she stated.
Bradley stated she’s preventing for a rise within the federal minimal wage not just for herself, however for the following era.
“They want it,” she stated, including that her recommendation for the youthful era is to “preserve preventing, preserve unionizing and preserve organizing.”
The final time the federal minimal wage was raised was in 2009, to $7.25 an hour. Efforts to extend the federal minimal wage have stalled a number of instances in Congress.
When Democrats held management in each chambers in 2021 they tried to incorporate a gradual improve of the federal minimal wage within the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 reduction package deal via a course of often known as reconciliation that requires solely a easy majority, however not all Senate Democrats had been on board.
The Biden administration issued an government order in April 2021 to boost the minimal wage for federal contract employees to $15 an hour, which incorporates nursing assistants at Veterans Administration hospitals, upkeep employees, cleansing workers and meals service employees.
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