DEMOCRATS IN DISARRAY: The Hill: $15 Minimum Wage Divides Democrats.
Democrats are divided on how much to lift the nation’s minimum wage, an issue that has long united the party.
Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is pushing to raise the federal wage from its current $7.25 an hour to $15. But budget experts warn such a hike could eliminate millions of U.S. jobs.
What’s the problem? Eliminate jobs, create new welfare-dependent Democratic voters! But wait, there’s more:
Many liberals on and off Capitol Hill have embraced the $15 figure, seeing it as an important remedy for addressing the nation’s growing income disparity. Democratic leaders, however, have been reluctant to back it, rallying instead around smaller increases.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) want to push the minimum wage to $12 per hour. President Obama has edged his support to higher levels in recent years, from $9 to $10.10 and now $12. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, backed $15 per hour for New York fast-food workers on Friday but hasn’t specified a wage floor for the nation.
The various positions underscore the tightrope party leaders are walking on the minimum wage increase, a concept highly popular among voters.
Unlike prior battles with Democrats on the issue, Republicans have significant ammunition in this fight. They point out that raising the minimum wage would mean lost jobs.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Congress’s official score-keeper, issued a report last year estimating that, while an increase in the minimum wage to $10.10 would hike incomes for roughly 16.5 million workers, it would leave another 500,000 unemployed.
A former CBO director said this week that a hike to $15 per hour would eliminate “many more jobs … because it would cut much further into the distribution of wages.”
“The effect is not linear, it rises much faster,” said the ex-CBO chief, who requested anonymity.
Pandering to low-information voters is hard to resist. Then blame the consequences on greedy Republicans.