Vice President Kamala Harris pledged her support for doubling the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to at least $15 in an interview Tuesday evening.
Harris made the remarks while talking about President Joe Biden’s economic record in an interview with NBC, saying they would work with Congress to make the change.
“At least $15 an hour, but we’ll work with Congress, right?” she said, according to the Telegraph. “It’s something that is going through Congress.”
The comments come after discourse over whether Harris worked at McDonald’s in her youth, as she claims, and after former President Donald Trump visited a McDonald’s and worked the fryer over the weekend.
Harris also called $7.25 an hour “poverty wages” on Monday, saying that it is difficult to make a living earning such a low wage.
“The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, which means that the person who is working a full day and full weeks will make $15,000 a year, which is essentially poverty wages,” Harris said, according to Reuters. “I absolutely believe that we must raise minimum wage.”
In 2020, Trump both expressed support for and rejected raising the minimum wage.
The last time the federal minimum wage was raised was in 2009, when it was changed from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The minimum wage in California, Harris’s home state, is $16. In Florida, Trump’s current home state, the minimum wage is $13.
Legislation to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour would change the wages in all but seven states and Washington, D.C.