15$ Minimum wage introduced by Bernie - 152 House members & 31 Senators support

[Shadows]

Raise the Wage Act

Senators Bernard Sanders & Patty Murray, Representatives Bobby Scott & Keith Ellison


The Raise the Wage Act would raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2024 and would be
indexed to the median wage growth thereafter. These increases would restore the minimum wage
to 1968 levels, when the value was at its peak. Under the proposal, the federal minimum wage would go from $7.25 to $9.25 in 2017, before proceeding to $12 in 2020 and $15 in 2024. T

Schumer told the crowd that Democrats “are going to stop nibbling around the edges” and start fighting for “bold legislation” like the $15 proposal. “It’s not just about a number,” he said. “This is a case for economic justice.” “The question is will the Republicans work with us to raise the minimum wage,” Murray said. “I think that we have designed [this bill] in a way that people across the country can get behind it.”

Sanders’ previous legislation phased in the $15 minimum wage increase by 2020. The new legislation’s slightly longer phase-in period was the result of a negotiation with Murray and Scott aimed at getting their support. Congressional aides with knowledge of the discussions said the lawmakers agreed from the get-go that $15 needed to be the target, however. That is a change from April 2015 when Murray and Scott introduced a bill that would raise the federal minimum wage to $12 by 2020.

Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.),
Dick Durbin (D-Ill.),
Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.),
Cory Booker (D-N.J.),
Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio),
Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.),
Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.),
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.),
Al Franken (D-Minn.),
Kamala Harris (D-Calif.),
Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii),
Tim Kaine (D-Va.),
Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.),
Ed Markey (D-Mass.),
Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.),
Jack Reed (D-R.I.),
Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii),
Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.),
Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.),
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and
Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) are original co-sponsors of the legislation.

Already half of the Democratic Caucus is uniting behind the 15$ idea with smaller phased in hikes over a longer period. Even Cory Booker is supporting this !

https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sanders-murray-announce-15-minimum-wage-bill

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

For what it's worth, I would vote in favor of this as well.

[Santander]

$15 in 2024 is probably something more like $12 in today's dollars, so while this is still not something I agree with, it is not that crazy for establishment Dems to be on board with...

[Shadows]

For what it's worth, I would vote in favor of this as well.

These are compromise stuff anyways, if the GOP wants to work, I think Dems will accept 11-12 too or phase in the hikes further, delay the 15$ thing. But atleast a strong bargaining point.

Too bad the Republicans are not even willing to negotiate. But 50% of the Democratic caucus as original sponsors tells us the party is uniting behind this & with a Democratic Congress & Presidency, strong hikes in Minimum wages are coming !

[Beet]

The far-right Feinstein is on the list

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The far-right Feinstein is on the list

There's absolutely no reason that a Senator from a state that is getting a $15 minimum wage before 2024 wouldn't support a national minimum wage of $15 in 2024. This is an incredibly safe position as a California Senator.

[Associate Justice PiT]

$15 in 2024 is probably something more like $12 in today's dollars, so while this is still not something I agree with, it is not that crazy for establishment Dems to be on board with...

     I'm not thrilled with $15 minimum wage on a federal level, but the implementation is at least decently well planned.

[Bojack Horseman]

Now this is what I can get behind. Minimum wage needs to be tied to inflation so that it goes up each year to the same buying power as it had last year.

Now of course conservatives are only against raising the minimum wage because it loses value with inflation each year, keeping the poor and working class on an economic treadmill. Another few years and $7.25 is going to be like 72¢. It's like a war of attrition.

[Bismarck]

I wouldn't be opposed to a small increase in the minimum wage but it has never been that high when adjusted for inflation. I believe if you go back to when the minimum wage was the highest relative to inflation, it comes out to around ten dollars in today's money.

[Shadows]

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday vowed to take up a $15 minimum wage in the first 100 hours of the next Congress if Democrats take back the chamber next year. If "we win the election," Pelosi told the gathered audience, "in the first 100 hours we will pass a $15 minimum wage."

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/25/democrats-2018-agenda-minimum-wage-increase-238828

Sanders, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.)—the top Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee—and 28 other Democratic senators introduced the Senate legislation on Thursday. Red-state Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Jon Tester (Mont.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) and Joe Donnelly (Ind.)–each up for reelection in 2018—are among the 17 Senate Democrats not signed on to the bill.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/335227-sanders-democrats-introduce-15-minimum-wage-bill

Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY), joined by 28 of their colleagues in the Senate, introduced legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Reps Bobby Scott (D-Va) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn) introduced a companion bill Thursday with 152 cosponsors in the House.

http://www.vermontbiz.com/news/may/sanders-introduces-15-minimum-wage

[ProgressiveCanadian]

The far-right Feinstein is on the list

There's absolutely no reason that a Senator from a state that is getting a $15 minimum wage before 2024 wouldn't support a national minimum wage of $15 in 2024. This is an incredibly safe position as a California Senator.

[7,052,770]

Cory Booker (D-N.J.),

Can't be true. I read on the Atlas Forum that Cory Booker is a neo-liberal Wall Street shill who opposes a living wage and other progressive goals.

[Shadows]

Cory Booker (D-N.J.),

Can't be true. I read on the Atlas Forum that Cory Booker is a neo-liberal Wall Street shill who opposes a living wage and other progressive goals.

Pretty poor attempt at sarcasm. Cory Booker didn't even support at 12$ Min wage in the last congress. Now he is supporting a 15$ Wage, Sanders' drug imports bill & a lot of other legislations for a 2020 run. He will be Sanders' lackey till 2020 & will stand on his head if it means getting the progressive vote for 2020 !

[Shadows]

Democrats really aren't interested in winning outside of the wealthiest metros, are they?

I realize that a $15 minimum wage polls well, but no one should delude themselves into believing that this is viable everywhere. There are entire states in which the median wage is below $15 per hour.

If you want to help low-wage workers without harming the businesses that employ them, reduce their payroll tax rate and raise or remove means-testing for public benefits so that more are eligible. You don't need to double the minimum wage.

By the way, of course corporate Dems like Booker can support this: Even if we assume that it's meant as more than a rallying cry, a $15 minimum wage would do much less harm to major employers like Wal Mart, Amazon, and McDonalds than it would to small employers, especially those in the smallest and poorest communities.

This is an incorrect statement. Minimum Wage is a net jobs increasing issue. It increases purchasing power which allows people to buy goods, increases government revenue & create many jobs. There have been massive amount of research about this. Seattle reached it's lowest unemployment with the highest minimum wage. 15$ in 2024 is 13$ in today's terms. Inflation adjusted, workers making minimum wages a lot it terms of purchasing power than decades ago. Cost of living has increased while wages have not.

If you look at productivity growth, minimum wages would be 18 or 19 $ today, forget 2024. Companies can pay their worker's a fair share.

90% of minimum wage workers are not teenages (20 or more). By 2020, minimum wage will directly or indirectly impact more than 40% of the workforce. 44.6% of minimum wage workers are single mothers.

This is not just a political issue - But of basic economics - 4/10 workers will be effected & will see the wages being raised - It is absolutely critical for economic growth & to reduce the federal budget deficit (Less Federal subsidy, less food-stamps, more tax revenue & jobs) !

[Shadows]

Gradually raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would directly lift the wages of 22.5 million workers. For a directly affected worker who works all year, that translates into a $5,100 increase in annual wage income, a raise of 31.3 percent. Another 19.0 million workers would benefit from a spillover effect as employers raise wages of workers making more than $15 in order to attract and retain their workforces. All told, raising the minimum to $15 in 2024 would directly or indirectly lift wages for 41.5 million workers.

Because lower-paid workers spend much of their extra earnings, this injection of wages would help stimulate the economy and spur greater business activity and job growth.

Of workers who would receive a raise, 63.0 % work full time, 46.6 % have some college experience, and more than 28.0 % have children. 40.8 % of single parents who work would receive higher pay, including 44.6 % of working single mothers.

http://www.epi.org/publication/15-by-2024-would-lift-wages-for-41-million/

The Minimum wage was designed to give a living wage & a life of dignity. What is the purpose of having a minimum wage if it has no relation to the bare minimum costs of a life of dignity?

[The_Doctor]

Democrats acting populist. Hmm. How interesting (and not unexpected).

[Hindsight was 2020]

The best part is Trump has proven to be too stupid to take the bait on this issue to win bipartisan support for 2020. He will arrogantly fight it an dems can hit him over the head with it in 2018 an 2020

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

For what it's worth, I would vote in favor of this as well.

socialist by association ^

[Shadows]

Wherever that came from, Shadows, I advise you to save it for your letters to the editor and Facebook wall posts. It is an extremely sloppy defense and one that raises unhelpful questions: For example, why should the productivity of a minimum wage worker track overall productivity? It is pretty clear that recent gains in productivity are not evenly distributed.

Anyway, whatever the virtues of a $15 per hour minimum wage are, I am not so eager to hasten the work of creative destruction that is hollowing out this country's small cities and rural areas. Nor am I eager to hasten the work of creative destruction that is reducing new firm starts in this country.

A person is not better off being forced to move away from the family, friends, and the institutions that raised them so that they can live in a major city where their productivity is high enough to sustain a $15 per hour wage.

Nor is that a person better off giving up the way of life that they have always known to pursue a new way of life, one that someone else has designed to meet the federal government's new minimum productivity standard.

Few people realize just how coercive this is. Someone who is content earning $10 per hour in her neighbor's shop is suddenly left out of a job and forced to move to someplace else where she can earn more.

It could be an Amazon warehouse in the suburbs of a major city: I am sure that most of you know how Amazon treats its employees.

Maybe this person preferred the familiarity, autonomy, and respect that were available to her working in the small shop that paid less. Maybe she liked having the freedom to stay in her hometown. Maybe she was able to live more affordably there, not just because housing is cheaper outside of major cities but also because people with strong relationships nearby can rely on each other for everything from help repairing a vehicle to free vegetables out of the garden.

This is not meant to sound idyllic; it's just an example. People face trade-offs when they seek employment, even low-wage work, and raising the minimum wage limits their ability to manage these trade-offs. To be clear, this does not imply that minimum wage laws are awful and ought to be abolished. But when we are discussing such a drastic increase applied to such a diverse set of people, places, and circumstances, this should give us some pause.

If you had read a little bit of Macro-economics, you wouldn't argue how necessary it is to raise the current Minimum wage significantly. You can debate if it should be 12 or 15 or 13, but no person should argue against a significant hike to be phased in by 2024 (8 years). By your logic, we should scrap the minimum wage which is designed to be a bare minimum living wage for people. How is it logical to damage the economy by having people who don't buy stuff & don't contribute & create jobs? Why should taxpayers waste huge money in food stamps & subsidies which is dragging the economy down? How is it good to work 2 jobs for a single mother (45% of minimum wage workers are single mothers) trying to support her family & be 1 healthcare scare away from bankruptcy.

How can you have a life of respect with food stamps & in poverty, with no healthcare, working 2 jobs sometimes & still barely scrapping by? How can you have a life of respect (which you claim will be lost) when inflation is every year dragging people into poverty & eroding their purchasing power & is taking away a life of dignity?

Your logic about losing jobs is not correct & is against most peer reviewed high quality research which shows 0 co-relation to unemployment, rather on the whole boosts the economy. (Look at Seattle reaching historic low in unemployment with huge minimum wage increased in 2017 - People are talking about 2014, 8 years from now when 15$ would mean 13$ in today's money). This is pure basic economics - When people have more money to spend, they will drive up the economy, create jobs.

7 Nobel Laureates in economics, including 100's of economists have called for a significant increase in minimum wage to create more jobs. Wellington (1991), Brown (1983) have conducted massive research & even in a specific sector, they have found little effect of jobs losses due to a higher minimum wage (This is not even considering the increase in economic activity due to higher wages).

And then you can look at Card & Kruger (1992) who looked at fast food restaurants in NJ & PA who found no co-relation to unemployment. This idea of big losses is fake tea party logic & goes against basic science & economics.

There is no detailed study on income base productivity but it not unfair to assume that it is constant across incomes (without more data). The point about productivity is that workers are producing much more & employers in general has considerable profits compared to 30-40 years ago!

[7,052,770]

Cory Booker (D-N.J.),

Can't be true. I read on the Atlas Forum that Cory Booker is a neo-liberal Wall Street shill who opposes a living wage and other progressive goals.

Pretty poor attempt at sarcasm. Cory Booker didn't even support at 12$ Min wage in the last congress. Now he is supporting a 15$ Wage, Sanders' drug imports bill & a lot of other legislations for a 2020 run. He will be Sanders' lackey till 2020 & will stand on his head if it means getting the progressive vote for 2020 !

No, as I posted on the other thread, Booker did support raising the minimum wage in the past, evidenced by his own Tweets and Facebook