« $15 an hour is the floor, » the Congressional Progressive Caucus tweeted Saturday, even as $7.25 has been in place since 2009.
Progressive Democratic lawmakers marked the 12-year anniversary of the last minimum wage hike on Saturday, demanding a substantial raise and slamming « starvation wages. » Congress last raised the federal minimum wage to its current level of $7.25 per hour on July 24, 2009. Since then, inflation has increased substantially while the lowest-paid workers in the country continue to earn the same amount they did more than a decade ago. This is the longest period the country has gone without the federal minimum wage increasing since it was first implemented in 1938. « It’s officially been 12 years since the minimum wage was last raised — to $7.25 an hour, in 2009. In 2021, we can’t be content with anyone making starvation wages, » the official Twitter account for the Congressional Progressive Caucus tweeted on Saturday. « $15 an hour is the floor. Raise the wage. » Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat and chair of the CPC, pointed out that inflation has increased substantially while the federal minimum wage has remained the same. « In the last 12 years, inflation has increased by 26.6%. But the minimum wage hasn’t gone up a single cent. It’s time to #RaiseTheWage, » Jayapal tweeted. Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, made a similar Twitter post.
