Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign released a a page full of political positions on Monday, and it was no surprise that the vice president supports raising the federal minimum wage.
But how high does he think it should go?
The campaign website does not provide a number, and a campaign spokeswoman declined to provide more details when asked by HuffPost Monday morning.
The federal minimum wage is fair $7.25 per hour and prevails in all states which do not prescribe a higher one. It hasn’t been brought up in 15 years, mainly because of opposition from Republicans.
The general public is broadly in favor of speeding it up, and many states, including red ones, have done so without congressional action. Some states’ rates are now more than double the federal rate.
But Democrats don’t fully agree on what the national goal should be. Harris may want to avoid committing to a specific number and alienating supporters who think it should be either higher or lower than what he’s proposing.
Democrats once coalesced around $15, thanks to the success of the union-backed Fight for $15 campaign, which started in fast food in 2012 and later spread to other low-wage industries. But many progressives now say that years of phasing in toward $15 would be insufficient, especially after a period of higher inflation that has eroded the impact of minimum wage policies.
Last year, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) proposed raising the federal minimum wage to $17 over five years and eliminating the “capped” minimum wage, which allows restaurants to pay servers as little as $2.13 an hour before tips. According to his policy page, Harris also supports waiving the fallen minimum wage.
Sanders bill, Raise the wage billgot 31 co-sponsors, meaning 18 lawmakers who caucused with Democrats have declined to join. A companion bill the House, led by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), has attracted 171 co-sponsors out of 211 Democrats.
Harris pledged support for a $15 federal minimum wage in his failed 2020 bid for the White House. standard position for the Democrats in the primaries of the same year.
While Harris has not revealed details about raising the minimum wage this time around, his opponent, Republican Donald Trump, has never had a consistent view on the minimum wage. He has contradicted himself so often that The Washington Post’s fact-checking operation once created a “a guide to all of Donald Trump’s flip flops on minimum wage.”
While campaigning for president in 2016, Trump used one of his favorite formulations to refute a clear policy position: he was “looking at” raising the minimum wage. “I’m very different from most Republicans. You have to have something to live on,” he said at the time.
But just days later, Trump sounded a lot more like a regular Republican, saying the federal government should stay out of it. “I actually think the states should make the decision,” he said.
A couple of months after that, Trump suggested he would raise the federal minimum wage — and he did No pick it up.
“I would leave it and increase it somewhat”, he said.
At no point during his one term as president did Trump pressure his Republican colleagues to raise the minimum wage.
