The Democratic-controlled U.S. House and Senate on Tuesday (Jan. 26) reintroduced a bill that would require the federal government to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025.
House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Mass.) said Democrats are prepared to try to implement the bill through a special budget tool that would bypass opposition from Senate Republicans; Rep. Bobby Scott, D-N.Y., argued that the raise would benefit 32 million American workers.
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives also passed a bill to raise the minimum hourly wage in 2019, which the Republican-controlled Senate did not address at the Time; but now that Democrats control the Senate for the first time in 10 years and Senate Majority Leader Schumer supports the bill, the bill is expected to be addressed, but at least 10 Republican senators must support the bill to pass it.
Most Republican lawmakers oppose the legislation, arguing that raising the minimum hourly wage will add to the woes of small businesses under the impact of the Communist virus (New Coronavirus) Epidemic; Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, said raising the minimum wage to $15 would be disastrous for many small businesses, and Romney cited estimates from the Congressional Budget Office that doing so would cost More than 1 million jobs.
Glenn Spencer, senior vice president of employment policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the minimum wage increase should be considered in a comprehensive manner, or at least tied to reforms of the Labor Fair Standards Act; he stressed that the $15-an-hour target is just a political figure and that there is no economic theory to explain the number.
David French, vice president of government relations for the National Retail Federation (NRF), also said, “A 100 percent increase in base wages is an unprecedented proposal, and such regulations applied as one will have unintended consequences for U.S. labor and employers.”
The retail leaf giant Target, which began raising the minimum wage for employees three years ago, said the company fully realized a minimum hourly wage of $15 in 2020, but the impact of salary increases and various benefit policies, Target’s employee-related costs in 2020, which were $1 billion higher than in 2019.
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