Bernie Sanders unveils plan for $17-an-hour US minimum wage

Bernie Sanders on Thursday announced a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour, saying the potent inflation Americans have faced over the past two years makes it necessary for the government to institute higher wages for workers.

Sanders intends to next month formally introduce legislation raising the minimum wage over a five-year period to a level $2 higher than the $15 an hour Joe Biden and many Democrats have pushed for in recent years. But there is no sign of Republicans wavering in their opposition to the proposal.

Congress has not approved a minimum wage increase since raising the level to $7.25 an hour in 2009, where it remains for workers in 20 states. Voters in several states and cities across the country have approved raising their minimum wage to $15 an hour, but progress on a national increase has remained elusive.

In 2021, Democrats attempted to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour as part of a large spending bill intended to help the US economy recover from the Covid pandemic, but the effort failed, in part due to the defections of eight Democratic lawmakers.

Biden later that year signed an executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contractors, which affected as many as 390,000 workers, but the president has not said if he supports the increase to $17 an hour. A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Although Sanders was supported by the heads of major labor groups the AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union (SEIU), he said little about how he planned to overcome objections both from Republicans and reluctant Democrats.

Republicans, who took control of the House of Representatives this year, have shown at best lukewarm enthusiasm for a minimum wage rise, and have instead focused on trying to convince Americans that Biden is to blame for the rapid inflation. In 2021, Republican senators introduce two proposals, one that would raise the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour, and another that would give a tax credit for workers who make less than $16.50 an hour. Neither went far in the Senate, which Democrats currently control.