Democrats have backed an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour in a draft version of their official 2016 party platform.
The party platform, released Friday night, favors raising the minimum wage, currently set at $7.25 an hour at the federal level, to $15 and indexing it to inflation, while also raising the lower minimum rate for tipped workers.
The mimum-wage plank is a victory for progressives who have pushed for a higher wage floor. That includes Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who backed a $15 federal minimum wage throughout his campaign for the presidential nomination, making it a key part of his stump speech.
His rival Hillary Clinton, however, has said that she would aim for a $12 federal minimum, while supporting state efforts to raise it even higher. President Obama has also lent his support to a $12 wage floor.
Several states and cities, including California and New York, have passed laws to raise their state miminum wages to $15 over a period of years. The changes came after activist efforts by union and progressive groups to set $15 an hour as a goal.
Other progressive policies backed in the draft platform include expanding Social Security benefits by taxing incomes above $250,000, reforming the Federal Reserve to increase diversity, implementing new regulations on “shadow banks” outside the regulatory perimeter today, and instituting a financial transactions tax.
The platform as currently written also includes an antitrust plank, calling on the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission to act against corporate concentration.
