Background: The last federal minimum wage increase came in 2007. A Democrat-majority Congress approved the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 (H.R. 2) – increasing the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour through three increments over a period of two years. Eighty-two House Republicans and all but three Senate Republicans voted Yes. President Bush signed the wage increase into law as part of a larger emergency supplemental appropriations bill.
In the 116 th Congress, the Raise the Wage Act was approved by the House on July 18, 2019 by a vote of 231-199. Previously, it had been marked up on March 6, 2019 by the House Committee on Education and Labor and approved on a party-line vote of 28-20. There was no legislative activity in the Senate.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in 2021 released a study on the Raise the Wage Act’s effects of increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 in 2025 and found employment would be reduced by 1.4 million workers.
Former Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta told the Wall Street Journal in 2019 that more than doubling the federal minimum wage would result in a loss of jobs in the U.S: “What I think is clear is $15 is something that will undermine this economy and job creation.”
Bill Status: The Raise the Wage Act legislation was reintroduced for the 118 th Congress on July 25, 2023. This increase to the federal minimum wage has the support of President Biden.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES