Key House Democrats say they won’t compromise on their demand for a $15-an-hour minimum wage when they take the majority next Congress.
President Trump has voiced support for a more modest increase to the federal minimum wage rate of $7.25 an hour. Meanwhile, the Senate will include seven Republican lawmakers from states with minimum wages at or soon to be at $11 an hour, who may be interested in a compromise.
But it’s $15 or nothing, Democrats say.
But its $15 or nothing, the Democrats say. Stephanie Lalle, spokeswoman for Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., who is in line to take over chairmanship of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said he will be reintroducing a $15 minimum wage bill next year
“I don’t think there is any interest in introducing a bill that is not $15 an hour,” said a source in Scott’s office, echoing a point made by other House Democratic aides. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who will likely return as House speaker next year, has long supported a $15 minimum wage. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has as well.
[Related: Bernie Sanders: Amazon’s $15 wage is the ‘shot heard round the world’]
While legislation that could raise the federal rate to that level could pass the House, it will face a wall in the Senate, where the GOP will retain a 53-47 majority in the next Congress.
However, there may be a majority for a less steep increase. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Tom Cotton, R-Ark., John Boozman, R-Ark., Cory Gardner, R-Colo., Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and Jon Kyl, Ariz., as well as Sen.-elect Josh Hawley, R-Mo., all hail from states that either have or are set to raise the minimum in their state to at least $11 an hour.
Two have already shown signs they may be open to a deal. Collins, in 2014, backed an effort to find a compromise on the issue that would have raised the federal rate, just not to the $10.10 the Democrats were demanding at the time.
In August, Hawley told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “I think a minimum-wage increase is probably a good idea” but added that he was “not so sure” that the ballot measure to increase the statewide rate to $12, which was then on ballot, was a good idea.
Most senators’ offices declined to comment to the Washington Examiner on whether they’d be willing to support an increase matching their states’ levels. Kyl’s office said the senator would oppose any increase in the federal rate.
There’s one other Republican who might be amenable to an increase in the federal rate: Trump. In a 2016 interview with CNN he said he would by “open to doing something on the minimum wage.”
He elaborated: “I’m actually looking at that. I’m very different from most Republicans. You have to have something you can live on. But, what I’m really looking to do is to get people great jobs so they get much more money than that so, that they make much more than $15. If you play around too much with the lower level number, you won’t be competitive.”
Since then Trump has rarely discussed the issue and has not pushed for legislation on the subject. “My view is a federal minimum wage is a terrible idea. A terrible idea,” Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic adviser, told the Washington Post in early November. But Trump has the final say, and his past comments suggest he may be willing to cut a deal.
It is a situation that has conservative opponents of a higher minimum wage worried.
“We’re concerned,” said Michael Saltsman, managing director of the Employment Policies Institute. Contrary to popular belief, he said, a federal wage hike doesn’t snuff out state and local wage activity. If anything, it sets off new rounds of experimentation, as Democratic-leaning states try to maintain their higher rates.
“What those seven need to understand is that there’s no free lunch for their states,” he said, referring to the GOP senators. “A deal on $12, for instance, would just give the same out-of-state groups who backed a $12 measure in Maine (or $11 in Arkansas) the motivation to come back for more.”
