Sen. Josh Hawley joins Dem effort to raise minimum wage

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is trying to steal some Democrat thunder by joining the crusade to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 per hour up to $15 per hour.

The lawmaker would also like to see an annual increase in the rate to account for inflation.

It has been more than 15 years since the minimum wage was increased.

Long time coming

Hawley has partnered with Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) on the legislation, and I am thinking it would have a very good chance of passing both the House and Senate with only minimal Republican support.

We know Democrats will be on board with this, and there are likely enough Republicans in both chambers who share these concerns to pass the legislation. Then the question becomes whether Donald Trump would sign it or not.

Supporting the legislation, Hawley stated, “For decades, working Americans have seen their wages flatline. One major culprit of this is the failure of the federal minimum wage to keep up with the economic reality facing hardworking Americans every day. This bipartisan legislation would ensure that workers across America benefit from higher wages.”

I understand the resistance to this from small business owners, especially those who regularly employ high school students, but this is something we seriously need to look at in terms of being able to put less-educated Americans to work at a respectable wage.

In my head, minimum wage was always something I associated with student part-time work, but we have plenty of Americans looking for work right after completing high school, and the pickings are fairly slim without higher education or trade training.

Imagine working for 40 hours and having a paycheck of $300, which would be about $265 after taxes were taken out. There is simply no way an adult can live off that kind of money, at least not respectably.

Conservative commentator Dana Loesch immediately pushed back, posting on X, “This is a horrible, progressive idea,” but is it?

Again, I respect the plight of small business owners, but as a country, maybe we just suck it up and agree to pay just a little bit more to help these small business owners meet their profit margin in order to be able to provide workers with a respectable wage.

For years, I fought against this in defense of small business owners, but prices have climbed so significantly in years, expecting anyone to work for $7.25 per hour is kind of ridiculous.

This is especially true if we really want all of these illegal immigrants removed from the country and their jobs taken by American workers, who simply need to make more than minimum wage.

Maybe $15 is too high, and we agree to $12.50 or $10, but I do like the idea of an inflationary wage increase to ensure the minimum wage keeps up with the times.

Just think about this… it has not been touched in more than 15 years, and is there anyone out there reading this right now that would have worked in any setting without getting a raise for more than a year or two?

I am open to listening to all arguments for and against on this one, as I would just love the reasoning behind the position on either side of this argument.