Democrats are facing an increasingly uphill battle when it comes to a $15-an-hour minimum wage and now their plans to include it in the $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill are in jeopardy.
But Rep. Debbie Dingell defended the call for an increase Sunday morning, arguing the people being paid minimum wage are the very individuals who have “kept us together” since the pandemic began.
“When it comes to the minimum wage, I am going to be one of the loudest screamers about it,” the Michigan Democrat said on CNN’s “Inside Politics.”
“The fact of the matter is if you look at who has kept us together these last months, almost a year now since Covid hit, it’s people we haven’t thought were worth paying $15 an hour. We need to pay people what their worth is and their worth in this society means they should be paid a minimum wage that keeps them above the poverty line.”
Dingell has long supported an increase to the minimum wage and just last month, she signed on as a cosponsor of the Raise the Wage Act of 2021, introduced by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) on Jan. 26.
Scott’s bill would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next four years, and would mark the first time Congress has voted to raise the federal minimum wage since 2007, when it was increased to $7.25.