Sen Sanders/Rep. Scott introduce $17 minimum wage bill into Congress

Sen. Sanders and Rep. Bobby Scott introduced a bill into Congress Tuesday to increase the federal min wage to $17/hour from its present $7.25/hour. It has been $7.25/hour since 2008. This increase would happen over the coarse of 5 years. In addition to the increase in min wage, the subminimum wage will be eliminated for teens, the disabled, and tipped workers. And future min wage increases will be tied to the annual increase in the median worker wage. No longer will Congress need to agree to increase the min wage. 28 million workers will see increases in their wages, about $3100 annually. 14 million of those workers benefits will be people of color.

The bill name is Raise the Wage Act of 2023; it was cosponsored by 146 members of Congress and 29 Senators. We don't know yet who those co-sponsors are. Nor do we know the bill number.

More details of the bill are available in this Common Dreams article: https://www.commondreams.org/news/17-minimum-wage

Read the text of the bill here: https://democrats-edworkforce.house.gov/imo/media/doc/raise_the_wage_act_bill_text.pdf

Read the Economic Policy Institute's analysis of the bill here: https://www.epi.org/publication/rtwa-2023-impact-fact-sheet/

But is $17/hour enough?

While there is great reason to welcome this move by Sanders and Scott to increase the federal min. wage to $17/hour over the course of 5 years, we must recognize that $17/hour is not a livable wage. A livable wage that would afford the ability to rent an apartment should be $21 to $24 per hour.

Rebecca Gordon puts some perspective on this question of a livable wage in this article, also from Common Dreams: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/unaffordable-housing-washington-dc

UPDATE 7/28/23
BILL NUMBERS/LIST OF CO-SPONSORS NOW AVAILABLE

The bill numbers are S2488 in the Senate and HB 4889 in the House.

Here in Oregon Reps. Blumenauer, Bonamici, Hoyle, are all cosponsors. Andrea Salinas is missing and needs to be encouraged to add herself to the list of co-sponsors. Naturally, the two Republicans from Oregon are not co-sponsors, that is Chavez-DeFemer and Bentz. In the US Senate, both Sens. Merklley and Wyden are co-sponsors. Overall there are 150 House members listed with 29 Senators, all Democrats.