Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced an ambitious plan that would more than double the federal minimum wage to $17 per hour.
Sanders announced the proposal outside of the Capitol Building on Thursday, flanked by union leaders and workers. The move would dramatically affect the business world.
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“The reason we are assembled here this morning is not complicated. In the year 2023, in the richest country in the world, nobody should be forced to work for starvation wages,” Sanders said at a news conference. “That’s not a radical idea. You work 40, 50 hours a week, you should not be living in poverty. It is time to raise the minimum wage to a living wage.”
The federal minimum wage was last increased in 2009 and now sits at $7.25 per hour. Sanders long backed a $15 federal minimum wage, but he is now pushing for $17 as an appropriate floor, given high inflation.
If passed, the plan would hike the minimum wage to $17 in every single state, although some states have already adopted their own minimum wages that are close to that level.
Washington, for instance, has a state minimum wage of $15.74, California’s minimum wage clocks in at $15.50, and the minimum wage in Massachusetts sits right at $15. Some places have state minimum wages below the federal threshold, although the federal minimum wage supersedes those laws and workers there are paid $7.25.
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