Democrats in Congress on Thursday introduced a bill that would increase minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024, according to the Washington Examiner.
"What we are here today to say is that a living wage is $15… if you are working 40 or 50 hours a week, you should not be living in poverty," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said, while adding that Congress had not raised minimum wage in almost a decade.
The bill would phase in the $15 rate by 2024 from the current rate of $7.25. The legislation has 35 co-sponsors in the Senate and 152 in the House of Representatives, but is not likely to pass in either the House or Senate, since Republicans control both, the Examiner reported.
"We are here to ask President [Donald] Trump to stick up for working people by supporting our bill," Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said.
House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) rejected the idea that a higher minimum wage would cost jobs. "This increase to the minimum wage is the biggest stimulus that we can give to the economy," she said, according to the Examiner.
Schumer said increasing the wage is not about the economy. "I think it will help the economy, but for me it is a moral issue," Schumer added.
Raising the wage to $15 would be the biggest federal minimum wage increase in history, according to Vice News.
Pelosi said during the announcement that if Democrats win back the House in the 2018 midterm elections, a minimum wage increase would be top priority. "In the first 100 hours, we will pass a $15 minimum wage," she said, according to Politico.
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