WASHINGTON — Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s openness to a more modest federal minimum hike is being met with skepticism by liberals who are insisting the U.S. Senate take up the $15 an hour provision that most Democrats desire.
Acknowledging “it hadn’t been raised in quite a while,” McConnell said on Tuesday that a discussion on an increase was worthwhile, pointing to a GOP proposal by Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Tom Cotton of Arkansas that would lift the minimum wage to $10 an hour over four years.
But the rapid backlash among progressives to McConnell’s float of a possible compromise demonstrates the deep distrust many Democrats have of the GOP leader.
“It would be unwise for Democrats to compromise with McConnell,” said Robert Reich, the liberal economist and former secretary of labor. “A significant majority of Americans want the minimum wage raised to $15 an hour. ... McConnell is trying to give the Republicans a smoke screen to hide behind, because he knows raising the minimum wage is so popular.”
McConnell has consistently lambasted the $15 number as a measure that would cripple small businesses. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that such an increase would cost 1.4 million jobs but also lift nearly a million Americans out of poverty.
A handful of Senate Republicans have expressed some desire to boost the floor federal payment to low-income workers, which has sat at $7.25 per hour for a dozen years. Currently, 29 states and Washington, D.C., have a higher minimum wage than the federal standard. Full-time employment at the current rate yields around just over $15,000 in annual income.
“Nowhere in America -- not even in Kentucky -- can someone afford rent on a two-bedroom apartment when earning $7.25 an hour, the current federal minimum,” Reich said. (Kentucky’s minimum wag has remained at $7.25 per hour since 2008.)
McConnell’s full-throated backing of even a smaller minimum wage increase could bend the political dynamics toward a compromise, but many Democrats view the Kentuckian’s offering as stale.
“What McConnell’s suggesting as a floor for the negotiation is way too low, at least six to seven years past where the debate is,” said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, a liberal group that spawned from Bernie Sanders’ first presidential campaign.
Geevarghese led workers across the country in strikes for $15 during President Barack Obama’s second term and was adamant that Democratic leaders shouldn’t compromise for $10 or $11.
“I think there’s got to be some strong arming here,” he said. “They need to do the arm twisting in the party. … Not putting a fight up is politically problematic in 2022 and 2024.”
Added Morris Pearl, the chair of Patriotic Millionaires, another group advocating for $15 an hour: “I don’t think anyone’s going to be running for reelection on, ‘I compromised with Republicans in not raising the minimum wage too much.’ … I think they should send the vice president to bang the gavel and call the roll.”
While the House included a $15 an hour minimum wage in its coronavirus relief package, the Senate parliamentarian ruled last week it could not be placed in the current reconciliation process, which only requires a simple majority for passage. While some of the most liberal Democrats are calling on President Joe Biden’s administration to ignore the parliamentarian, it’s more likely now that a minimum wage increase will need to be passed separately, likely requiring 60 Senate votes.
A Morning Consult poll released Wednesday showed while nearly 70% of voters favor some type of minimum wage hike, that support splits more along party lines between $15 and $11 an hour. Thirty-five percent of Republicans support the $11 marker, while 40% chose no raise at all.
The last time the minimum wage was raised nationally was in 2007, when a vote to incrementally lift the hourly rate just $1.40 over two years combined with tax cuts for small businesses resulted in an initial overwhelming Senate vote of 94-3, an unimaginable bipartisan outcome in today’s Washington. That act, which McConnell supported, took the hourly rate gradually from $5.85 in 2007 to $7.25 in 2009, where it remains today.
The current proposal -- which more than doubles the wage -- is obviously a much more dramatic spike. The House bill would immediately raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour and then gradually to $15 an hour by 2025.
The Romney plan, which includes an E-Verify component to ensure businesses only hire legal residents, prevents any increase during the coronavirus emergency and lifts it to $10 an hour by 2025.
Rachel Greszler, a research fellow in economics at the conservative Heritage Institute, said that even the Republican alternatives being offered don’t do enough to exempt small businesses from the costs tied to hiring new, usually younger, employees at higher wages.
“Any compromise ... needs to incorporate cost of living,” Greszler said. “$15 in Mississippi is the median wage.”
