Bernie To Introduce $15 Federal Minimum Wage Legislation On Wednesday

We all knew it was coming and now it has finally been confirmed that the Senate’s favorite Socialist will introduce legislation later this week calling for a $15 federal minimum wage. The pending release of the bill was confirmed earlier today by Bloomberg’s Josh Eidelson. Apparently co-sponsored by fellow liberals, Senator Murray, Keith Ellison, Bobby Scott and Raul Grijalva, the bill will call for a $15 federal minimum wage to be fully implemented by 2024.

Bernie Sanders, Sen. Murray, Keith Ellison, Bobby Scott, Raul Grijalva et al will unveil bill Wednesday to raise minimum wage to $15 by 2024

— Josh Eidelson (@josheidelson) April 24, 2017

For those silly ‘math’ people out there, that’s a mere 107% increase in minimum wage over just a few short years, which we suspect will at least slightly outpace inflation over the same period.

As our readers are undoubtedly aware, Bernie has long been an advocate of the $15 “living wage.” The Daily Caller provided some background on the other sponsors’ efforts to meddle in labor markets.

Murray has pushed for a federal minimum wage increase in the past, introducing the “Raise the Wage Act” in April 2015. The legislation called for the federal minimum wage to be increased from $7.25 to $12 an hour by 2020. The bill never made it far in the Republican-controlled Congress, but Murray has remained a leader in efforts to increase the federal minimum wage.

Ellison lost narrowly to Perez in the DNC chairperson race and remains a favorite among liberal activists. The progressive Minnesota-Democrat is a favorite among unions, and has been a strong advocate for the Fight for Fifteen movement.

Grijalva, who co-chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) with Ellison, was a part of efforts by the CPC to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour in the summer of 2015. Shortly after Murray’s efforts, the CPC introduced the “Pay Workers a Living Wage Act” in July 2015.

Scott joined Murray in sponsoring efforts to get the minimum wage to $12 per hour in 2015, arguing (at the time) that a $12 minimum wage was much more politically feasible at the time.