Democrats Are Rallying Around $12 Minimum Wage

[applegrove]

Democrats Are Rallying Around $12 Minimum Wage

By NOAM SCHEIBERAPRIL at the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/23/business/economy/democrats-are-rallying-around-12-wage-floor.html?_r=0

"SNIP................

WASHINGTON — Democrats in Congress are uniting around a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour.

Within the next several days, Senator Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate committee that deals with labor issues, plans to introduce a bill to increase the minimum wage, in steps, from its current level of $7.25 to $12 by 2020.

The measure has little chance of passing the Republican-controlled Congress in the near future, but it is the latest indication of Democrats’ rising ambitions for lifting the wage floor, an issue with considerable popular support in an era of increasing income inequality. The party is determined to elevate the issue in next year’s congressional and presidential elections.

Senator Murray’s forthcoming bill, and a companion measure by Representative Robert C. Scott in the House, have considerable support within the party, according to congressional aides. Among the 15 to 20 Democrats who already back the effort in the Senate are Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, and Charles E. Schumer of New York, his chosen successor.




................SNIP"

[fadedrose]

1. $15 would be better .... nt

[applegrove]

2. $15 would be better. I make $11. I would welcome $12.

[yeoman6987]

6. Tomorrow would be better....2020?

Good gracious that will equal 7.25 that it is now. I am sorry but I cannot give the high five for this. They need to raise it to 15 dollars in January 2016 and a dollar every year for a long time.

[Scootaloo]

8. Well, you know how the party works

Have to pre-compromise before even getting out the gate, for fear that people who never vote for them won't vote for them.

[diabeticman]

3. it is a beginning but WHY do these increases always take so long. I can see 36 months but 5 years

to get up to $12? It should be $15 but $12 can be helpful.

[AuntPatsy]

4. 15 is too low, prices have gone up not down, and we are supposed to trust them

With our economic future?

[neighbor tim]

5. Democrats Are Rallying Around $12 Minimum Wage

That's my kinda party! Democratic Party! Oh yeah!

[Doctor_J]

7. interesting they're doing this now, when it has no chance of passing.

Part of the 2016 campaign maybe. Hopefully they will follow through and Hillary will join in.

[PoliticAverse]

12. I think it is for the 2016 election campaign starting now. n/t

[joshcryer]

16. Raising the minimum wage is a party plank.

I don't know why you guys keep bringing up that it can't pass. Of course it can't pass, the party isn't in power.

But you know damn sure that when it doesn't pass it'll make great fodder for the 2016 campaign ads. Any Republican voting against it and who is up for reelection will be quite in a bind.

So it's still symbolic and it can do some good because if we gain back power because we tried to pass it now, we will be able to pass it then.

[liberal_at_heart]

9. by 2020? By then it will probably need to be $20/hr to keep up with inflation. Democrats

just don't have a clue what the people need.

[madville]

10. The catch is

it's only for jobs the TPP displaces so it won't apply to any actual jobs.

[Thinkingabout]

11. Make the Republicans have to vote, have them on record they are against wage increases.

Sometimes you have to know how to play the game.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

13. Fight for 15

12 does not do it

[winter is coming]

15. +1. Too many people are trying to scrape by on minimum wage jobs.

It's not kids working for gas money any more. The minimum wage needs to be a living wage.

[daredtowork]

14. Why is it always "by 2020" or some wtf time in the future?

Stop passing the buck forward when inflation will make that raise meaningless anyway.

Make it $15 and make it NOW.

[Doctor_J]

17. 1. by that time$12 will still be poverty level. 2. by that time the pledge will be forgotten

anyway.

Our party is such a joke.