House and Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I- Vt.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, introduced the Raise the Wage Act, which would gradually raise the federal minimum wage to $17 by 2028, or more than double the current federal minimum wage of $7.25. The legislation would also seek to eliminate the tipped sub-minimum wage over the next seven years (and eliminate the tip credit for workers with disabilities over the next five years).
This is not the first time during the Biden presidential administration that Congress tried to increase the federal minimum wage. A $15 federal minimum wage was originally part of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan at the beginning of his presidential term in 2021, and the Raise the Wage Act was introduced shortly after by House Democrats, proposing to eliminate the tip credit and raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. The same legislation had been introduced (and failed) during the Trump administration in 2019, but failed to pass in the Senate both times.
