Workers and labor activists urge Congress to pass the Raise the Wage Act on July 18, 2019, in Washington, DC.
Credit: Alex Wong/Getty
It’s official: The Senate has no plans to raise the federal minimum wage anytime soon.
A spokesperson for Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, told Vox that the committee is not considering a bill that would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, or any other increase, for that matter.
Republican opposition to the Raise the Wage Act in the Senate was expected, but the news essentially ends — for now — a years-long campaign to raise wages for millions of workers by lifting the current $7.25 minimum hourly wage.
Judy Conti, director of government affairs for the National Employment Law Project, said that blocking the bill will end up hurt Republican senators.
“Even the Chamber of Commerce acknowledges that it’s time to raise the federal minimum wage,” Conti wrote in an email to Vox. “[Alexander] may be retiring […]
Talking about stupid???
How could anyone think that Moscow has anything to do with this.
Hey g f look up the origin of ‘Moscow Mitch” nickname and you will discover that yes Moscow had nothing to do with the minimum wage debate and everything to do with election security. McConnell has refused to allow a vote on two election security bills passed by the House. Virtually inviting the Russians or whomever to create distrust and chaos in our electoral system. He seems to believe this gives his party a distinct advantage and even if they loose suspicion of voter fraud could help them win-so much winning…..
I still get confused about who the Trump (or surrogate McConnel) supporter is. With an 88% Republican approval rating it looks to me that his support goes deep in his party. The statistics regards income of supporters being higher than Dems also indicates that his supporters are wider than we often think.
The theorem that the lower educated, poorer, white, rural voters act against their interests by voting for Trump seems to be empirically wrong or we have mis-defined what their interests are. My sense is that they are a beleagured abused class who see themselves as dumped on by liberals, the highly educated and prosperous. After all redneck and trailer trash have not yet joined the N-word class of pejoratives. Recognition, dignity, respect are probably more important than a little more money. Trump offers them that. How often have they been lied to? Always. Even the $16 minimum wage bill passed the House won’t be fully implemented unti 2025 at which point the minimum wage earner will still be way under water from where they were in 1972…Of course many of them know they probably won’t have jobs by then or soon after as Congress allows runaway AI, automation and worker guest visa programs. But they have the hope that Trump will be their champion.
“It’s official: The Senate has no plans to raise the federal minimum wage anytime soon.” — Neither did the approved House version of the bill.