House Democrats are close to having the votes to pass a $15 minimum wage bill, a vote that would come at a time when the minimum wage hasn’t been raised in a record-breaking decade. The bill is guaranteed to come under ferocious attack from Republicans, and some Democrats are looking to water it down to blunt those attacks—as if that would ever stop Republicans.
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn has reportedly told his colleagues that he has 213 votes for the bill, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters, “I don’t have any doubt that we’re going to have the votes.” Rep. Terri Sewell is now onboard after having pushed for a regional minimum wage approach that would mean 15.6 million workers, 5.6 million of them women of color, wouldn’t get raises that they would get under a national $15 minimum wage.
The Raise the Wage Act would bring the minimum wage to $15 in 2024. The Economic Policy Institute projects that that will be worth roughly $12.98 in today’s dollars, and “As of today, there is not one county in America where a single individual, even without children, can have a secure standard of living working full-time, year-round at $12.98 per hour.”
As Democrats try to bring that modest standard of living to U.S. workers, Republicans will seek to divide Democrats by wailing about small businesses, even though the vast majority of workers who stand to benefit work for massive companies such as Walmart and McDonald’s.