$15 minimum wage passes in House

WASHINGTON — House Democrats approved legislation Thursday to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time in a decade, to $15 an hour.

Passage was assured after centrists won concessions for a slower phase-in, over six years instead of five. They also won assurances that the increase could be halted midway if a study shows job losses or other adverse effects.

The measure, which passed largely along party lines, 231-199, after Republicans branded it a jobs-killer, faces a blockade in the Senate, where Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said he will not take it up. Only three Republicans voted for it, while six Democrats opposed it.

An increase in the $7.25 hourly wage has been a top Democratic campaign promise, intended to address income inequality that’s driving the 2020 political debate. Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said raising the wage is the “right thing to do.”

“We must never stop fighting to honor the dignity of work,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said before the vote. “American workers deserve a raise. No one can live with dignity on a $7.25 an hour wage.”

The legislation, for the first time, would pay tipped workers the same as others earning the minimum, boosting their pay to $15 an hour, too. It’s now $2.13.

As the measure passed, the House gallery, filled with restaurant workers, was filled with cheers and chants of “We work! We sweat! We want 15 on our check!”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a New York Democrat

and a strong ally of the Fight for $15 movement, called the vote a “huge deal.” But she signaled the fight is not over.

“It’s not just about $15, it’s about $15 and a union,” she said.

“Fifteen started 10 years ago, so what is that pegged to inflation today? That’s why what we fight for is a living wage. So I think that this vote is an important milestone.”

Under the measure, once the minimum wage reaches $15, it would continue to be adjusted for inflation.

The bill also increases the sub-minimum wage for teenagers and employees with disabilities until they all equal the general minimum wage.

The wage increase would be the first since Democrats last controlled the majority. It was signed into law by President George W. Bush.

States are already able to raise the wage beyond the federal minimum, and many have done so.

During the floor debate, Rep. Ronald Wright, R-Texas, called it a “disastrous bill.” Wright said essentially doubling pay would cost jobs and the bill should be renamed the “Raising Unemployment for American Workers Act.”

The bill previews what Democrats would do if they capture the Senate and the White House in 2020, and it demonstrates how fast the politics have shifted since 2012, when fast-food workers began to strike in cities around the country, demanding $15-an-hour wages and a union.

When the Fight for $15 movement was started, the figure seemed absurdly high, and even Democrats thought it was politically impossible.

In the years since, Republican states like Arkansas and Missouri have raised minimum wages, encouraging Democrats on Capitol Hill.

Companies have joined in, with corporations including Amazon and Target raising their base wages to $15.

Walmart has raised its base wage to $11 an hour and in June, Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon announced the company would urge Congress to raise the wage.

While opponents have long said higher minimum wages lead to job losses, economists say new studies are casting doubt on those long-held theories.

A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office sent mixed messages.

Raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 will pull 1.3 million Americans out of poverty and could result in wage increases for up to 27 million workers, according to the analysis.

But it could leave 1.3 million people out of work, the same study concluded. While the legislation would boost incomes at the bottom, it would cost richer households and would slightly reduce gross domestic product.

The report made clear that its estimate of 1.3 million potential job losses, which would equal roughly 0.8% of the workforce, was a median forecast, and that job losses could be substantially smaller — or larger. In a worst-case scenario, some 3.7 million jobs could be lost, the agency said.

Republicans focused on the study’s job-loss figure, as well as regional disparities in the cost of living.

“Let’s leave freedom in the hands of the people, in the hands of the states — that’s what this country is all about,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., who managed the bill for Republicans on the House floor. “In socialist regimes, all decisions are made by a small group of people at a central government. That is not the American way.”

Economists have increasingly accepted that some level of minimum-wage increase can work — coming at a minimal cost to jobs — in some jurisdictions, said David Neumark, an economist at the University of California at Irvine who has studied minimum wages extensively.

But a one-size-fits-all policy that more than doubles some businesses’ wage bills could hit employers in lower-pay areas hard, he said.

To fast-food workers like Terrence Wise, 40, who lives in Kansas City, Mo., and makes $12 an hour working full time at McDonald’s, the vote shows the power of grass-roots activism.

“We’re a powerful voting bloc,” said Wise, a longtime leader of the Fight for $15 movement, “and we will take that power to the ballot box.”