On July 18, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Raise the Wage Act of 2019. The act would raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour by 2025. After 2025, the wage would be indexed to median wage growth each year.
The act passed the House along partisan lines with Democrats voting in favor and Republicans against, 231-199.
Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said in a statement that he will send a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell demanding that he bring the legislation to the floor for a vote as soon as possible.
Congressman Jodey Arrington (TX-19), who voted against the Raise the Wage Act, released the following statement:
“The best way to raise workers’ wages, pull people out of poverty and put them on a path to prosperity is not through imposing big-government mandates that distort the market, burden small businesses, and, ultimately, put Americans out of work. In fact, the misguided $15 minimum wage legislation Democrats passed out of the House today would hurt the very people it is trying to help, resulting in a loss of almost four million American jobs and a reduction in family income by $9 billion.
“I am proud to have joined my Republican colleagues and President Trump to pass pro-growth tax reform, which has activated the free market forces of competition and led to wages rising at the fastest pace in a decade, unemployment at the lowest level in nearly half a century, and over 1.4 million more job openings than there are workers to fill them. Going forward, these policies, not extreme left-wing proposals that put our nation on the road to economic ruin, should guide our approach.”
Six states and the District of Columbia have already passed bills to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by or before 2025, according to online sources. According to the Texas Workforce Commission, Texas minimum wage is set equal to the federal minimum wage by statute. The minimum wage was raised to the current amount of $7.25 in 2009.