Sanders unveils bill for $17 federal minimum wage after years of pushing for $15
Zachary Halaschak
Video Embed
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced an ambitious plan that would more than double the federal minimum wage to $17 per hour.
Sanders announced the proposal outside of the Capitol Building on Thursday, flanked by union leaders and workers. The move would dramatically affect the business world.
SIGNS OF STRESS START TO BUILD IN MARKETS AS DEBT CEILING DEADLINE LOOMS
“The reason we are assembled here this morning is not complicated. In the year 2023, in the richest country in the world, nobody should be forced to work for starvation wages,” Sanders said at a news conference. “That’s not a radical idea. You work 40, 50 hours a week, you should not be living in poverty. It is time to raise the minimum wage to a living wage.”
The federal minimum wage was last increased in 2009 and now sits at $7.25 per hour. Sanders long backed a $15 federal minimum wage, but he is now pushing for $17 as an appropriate floor, given high inflation.
If passed, the plan would hike the minimum wage to $17 in every single state, although some states have already adopted their own minimum wages that are close to that level.
Washington, for instance, has a state minimum wage of $15.74, California’s minimum wage clocks in at $15.50, and the minimum wage in Massachusetts sits right at $15. Some places have state minimum wages below the federal threshold, although the federal minimum wage supersedes those laws and workers there are paid $7.25.
Proponents of higher minimum wages say that the federal threshold is so low that it results in poverty for many families. The federal minimum wage has lost nearly 30% of its purchasing power since it was last hiked in 2009, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Business groups have long argued against huge increases in the minimum wage, and it is expected that Sanders’s proposal will be vigorously opposed by organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce.
The business-aligned Employment Policies Institute said in a statement about the legislation that raising the minimum wage to $17 would result in the loss of millions of jobs and worsen inflationary pressure.
“It’s no surprise Sen. Sanders is pushing yet another progressive policy backed by Big Labor without considering the harmful impacts on America’s small businesses and employees. Economists have demonstrated how harmful this unprecedented increase will be. Yet Sanders and his union allies are choosing politics over employees for bad policy that’s already been rejected by members of Sanders’ own party,” Michael Saltsman, the executive of the group, said.
The plan has no path to becoming law in the near term, given Republican control of the House.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The calculus would also be difficult in the Senate, where Democrats hold only a tenuous majority and centrist lawmakers such as Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), and Jon Tester (D-MT) have eschewed more liberal economic policies like the one Sanders is pushing.
In 2021, eight Democratic senators (including those three) voted against a measure that would have raised the federal minimum wage to $15. Nevertheless, Sanders said during the news conference that he would be pushing to get enough votes in the Senate and is hoping to get the measure onto the floor for a vote.