Democrats Introduce Bill Boosting...

 

Brad Polumbo Opinion Editor, FEE.org

Democrats Introduce Bill Boosting Minimum Wage to $15 Nationwide   Democrats want to more than double the federal minimum wage, and they’re not giving up on the so-called “Fight for 15.” New legislation was just introduced making this change, and they hope to pass it in a party-line vote with a simple Senate majority.   “A group of Democratic lawmakers reintroduced legislation on Tuesday to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025 — and indicated they may use a powerful procedural tool to pass the bill using their slimmest-possible Senate majority,” Fox Business reports.   “Let’s be clear: The $7.25 an hour federal minimum wage is a starvation wage,” Senator Bernie Sanders said. "No person in America can make it on $8, $10 or $12 an hour."   Interestingly, an article we just published by economist Martha Njolomole explains that the “living wage” in many states—all but New York, California, and Massachusetts—is actually less than $15. Even more crucially, minimum wage hikes inevitably cause job losses and hurt far more than they help. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that up to 3.7 million jobs would be killed by a $15 minimum wage even in the pre-pandemic scenario—now, with so many businesses struggling, the job-killing effect would likely be significantly worse.   Good intentions cannot eliminate these disastrous consequences