With the federal minimum wage stuck at $7.25 for the longest time it’s gone without an increase since 1938, the Democratic House is preparing to vote on the Raise the Wage Act on Thursday. The bill would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024—not exactly blazing speed, but a major improvement over more years of $7.25.
Donald Trump has pledged to veto the bill, which was a recreational promise anyway, since Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans won’t let it through. Because Republicans hate working people and think the minimum wage should be a poverty wage, if they even think a minimum wage should exist at all. Republicans have been emboldened in their opposition by a Congressional Budget Office analysis that treats outdated studies the same as the best research on the issue, using those outdated and often garbage studies to weigh against the reams of research showing that raising the minimum wage does not cost jobs. Other research shows widespread and often unexpected benefits from increasing the minimum wage, including lower suicide rates and lower recidivism among people released from prison.
Nonetheless, despite the best research—which draws on many, many cases where the minimum wage has gone up, allowing for real-world studies of what happens—Republicans will not only oppose the raise but will try to lay traps for squishy Democrats, using a motion to recommit to undermine the entire bill. Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-chairs Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Mark Pocan have warned that if wobbly Democrats fall into the motion to recommit trap, the CPC will vote against the bill itself, saying in a statement, “We have no doubt that Congressional Republicans will try to divide the Democratic Caucus with a disingenuous Motion to Recommit. It’s up to all of us to stand unified and reject their bad faith effort to undermine this bill,” and, “After consulting with our Members this week, we are confident that any bill that includes a poison pill Republican Motion to Recommit will lack the votes to pass on the House Floor.”
It’s time for this bill to pass, without poison pills. A vote for a $15 minimum wage is a vote for gender and racial equity, since it would disproportionately benefit women and people of color. A vote for a $15 minimum wage is a vote to give 1.3 million veterans a raise. And it’s a vote for the general proposition that work should pay a wage that someone, somewhere in this country can actually live on.
This blog was originally published at Daily Kos on July 17, 2019. Reprinted with permission.
