One of the Senate’s most conservative members introduced a bill to increase the federal minimum wage for the first time in more than 15 years. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., joined Sen. Pete Welch, D-Vt., to increase a wage they said is lower now than at any point since the 1940s, when adjusted for inflation.
The bill would increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour starting in 2026. Each September after that, the Secretary of Labor would use the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers to determine what the new wage will be for the following year.
“For decades, working Americans have seen their wages flatline,” Hawley said in a statement. “One major culprit of this is the failure of the federal minimum wage to keep up with the economic reality facing hardworking Americans every day.”
Welch said the county is “in the midst of a severe affordability crisis, with families in red and blue states alike struggling to afford necessities like housing and groceries.”
“A stagnant federal minimum wage only adds fuel to the fire,” Welch stated. “Every hardworking American deserves a living wage that helps put a roof over their head and food on the table — $7.25 an hour doesn’t even come close.”
The federal minimum wage was last increased in 2009. Inflation has decreased its value by 32% since that time.
Other efforts to raise minimum wage
It will be difficult to get the Hawley-Welch bill passed into law. A federal minimum wage increase is introduced every year without success. The Hawley-Welch bill isn’t even the first from 2025.
In April, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.., along with 33 Senate Democrats and 142 Representatives, introduced a bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour by 2028.
They pointed out that if the value of a minimum wage kept pace with its peak in 1968, the minimum wage would have been $23 an hour in 2021.
“No person working full-time in America should be living in poverty,” Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., said when the bill was introduced that “when we put money in the pockets of American workers, they will spend that money in their communities.”
The sponsors said their bill would increase the pay and standard of living for nearly 22 million workers across the country.
