this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2026
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A pair of progressive Democrats unveiled a bill on Tuesday that would raise the federal minimum wage to $25 per hour, considered the bare minimum a single adult needs to meet the cost of living in much of the US.

The Living Wage For All Act is the first bill to be introduced by the newly sworn-in Rep. Analilia Mejía (D-NJ), who won a special election earlier this month after helping to lead the fight for a $15 minimum wage in her home state of New Jersey.

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[–] Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Great, next time you have a majority, pass the increase.

You don't need a super majority, stop your parliamentary bullshitting. Use "the nuclear option" (Trent Lott, R coined the term in 2000s to scare the dummies), you only need a SIMPLE MAJORITY VOTE.

Don't try it just once... repeat until passage, party whips can make it happen. If they can't, go public with the holdouts and why, every day. Refuse to pass anything else until it's done.

People have been fighting for 15 an hour so long it's no longer enough. Poland has better worker benefits and pays almost as much as the USA; we will soon be surpassed by Eastern Europe.

When the labor law was passed in 1938 or so, the minimum wage was supposed to be enough to keep a family of four above the poverty line with ONE WORKER. Make that the law, because you obviously can't be trusted to raise the wage on your own in the future. You embarrassing hacks.

[–] pfried@reddthat.com 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The last time the Democrats had a majority was in the 117th Congress. They introduced a minimum wage increase bill HR 603 with 202 cosponsors, not a single one Republican. If the Democrats have a slim majority, all it takes is for a few Democrats whose districts rely on votes from small business owners who don't want to pay higher minimum wage during a pandemic when their business is shut down to stop it. Those small business owners vote, and their employees listen to people like you. If you vote for enough Democrats that aren't in that position, of course it will pass. The messaging to the employees should be that if their Democratic representative isn't meeting demands, they should primary them, not that they should let Republicans win.

[–] Flocklesscrow@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago (3 children)

The Democrats ALWAYS have just enough defectors who will cross the aisle to stop any progressive legislation.

Because they're not a real Party; they're Controlled Opposition.

Every single Dinosaur Democrat needs to be ousted, starting with Schumer.

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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Great, next time you have a majority, pass the increase.

Impossible. Can't be done. You don't understand how politics works.

Now donate $2028 to my reelection campaign or this Palestinian refugee gets shoved into a wood chipper.

[–] beansoup@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Actually the Palestinian gets shoved into the chipper regardless 😁 Palestinian genocide is bipartisan!

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Okay, but if a Republican wins, then its the Leftists' fault when it happens.

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[–] Snowies@lemmy.zip 31 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

We need a federal minimum wage that increases with inflation every year as a default.

If your wages aren’t keeping up with inflation, you’re taking a pay cut, every year — for the same (or let’s be real, slightly more) expected workload.

It’s time for the work force in this country to organize and stand united as a whole.

A thousand rich people cannot withstand the might of 300 million working voters.

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[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 192 points 3 days ago (10 children)

Can’t wait to hear all the people complaining about this because they’re already making $25 an hour. As though keeping everybody else down will somehow make things better for you.

If you’re making $25 an hour, and the minimum wage changes, you should demand more money for yourself, not less money for other.

[–] disorderly@lemmy.world 99 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Isn't it weird how when billionaires make more money "a rising tide raises all boats", but when the poorest make more money, suddenly there's extreme resource scarcity?

[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 36 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Rising tide raises all yachts. Most of us can’t afford boats, so we’re just drowned by the tide.

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[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 55 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's called "punching down economics".

[–] BillyClark@piefed.social 20 points 3 days ago (1 children)

“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”

― Lyndon B. Johnson

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[–] TommySoda@lemmy.world 33 points 3 days ago (3 children)

As someone that makes around $25, that's still not even that much money. It definitely feels like a good minimum wage as I can afford my bills and food relatively easily (although it is getting harder as prices go up) but it's still not really enough to make my life that much more comfortable than it was 5 years ago.

The only complaint I have is that I needed to work for 10 years in order to reach a wage of what would now be considered minimum wage. It's always seemed like every increase in wages I have ever gotten has been a year or two too late conpared to how expensive everything is. When I was making $14 an hour the average house prices in my area were $100,000 to $300,000. Now that I'm making almost twice as much and could afford a house 8 years ago, house prices in my area average around $400,000 to $800,000 and sometimes over $1,000,000. It's like I've been playing catch up since the day I was born. In my opinion, I should be making $30+ an hour.

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[–] evenglow@lemmy.world 20 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Fix poverty and you'll see a bunch of completely unrelated problems magically disappear.

Which is exactly why rich people love poverty so much. Revenue stream.

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[–] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 26 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Companies with more than $1 billion gross revenue or more than 500 employees would be scheduled to increase their minimum pay to $25/hour by 2031, while smaller employers would be on a longer timeline to reach $25/hour by 2038.

I wish we would stop chasing moving targets here. 2031 is just 5 years, but what will it mean with inflation? Using an inflation calculator and comparing $25 from five years ago (2021), to today's inflation rate, it bring us to $30.47 in 2026. Over five dollars in five years.

I'm no mathematician or economist, so correct me if I'm wrong, but if inflation continues this trend, wouldn't enacting a $25 wage in 5 years still bring us below a minimum living wage? That is, if we'd started the fight for $25 five years ago, maybe it'd make sense to make it that number today. But by picking a target that makes sense today and pushing it 5 years into the future, doesn't that mean it'll be $5 weaker (or whatever change inflation causes) when it finally rolls out?

Calculate future inflation before picking the target, then tie the number to inflation, damn it. These low numbers just mean we'll keep chasing new minimums and will always be left behind.

[–] ptc075@lemmy.zip 17 points 2 days ago

I agree, we need to stop chasing a moving target. Instead, minimum wage needs to be adjusted every year to account for inflation.

Fun fact, the maximum amount you can donate to your congressmen is increased every year to account for inflation. So, we already have the formulas in place.

[–] sommerset@thelemmy.club 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Hey. I want to nationalize seashores.

It's unfair most people are kept in tiny dirty reservations ( public beaches) while the rich still own most of the costal areas.

Oceans coasts belong to all of us.

[–] pfried@reddthat.com 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Every state with a coastline already has laws guaranteeing beach access. https://beachapedia.org/File:Surfrider_2019_Beach_Access_Map.png

[–] sommerset@thelemmy.club 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Lies. There is no way to get to the beach on most of the east coast - mass, ct.
It's mostly entirely built out and privatized. I was kicked out so many times just walking - hey bro this "old fart" owns this land - gtfo

[–] pfried@reddthat.com 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)
[–] sommerset@thelemmy.club 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

At one point, Mr. Khosla, who owns the land through a holding company, hired guards to stand at the top of the road. In 2012, five surfers were arrested and became known as the Martin’s Five.

Go ahead bring you family to a gated mass beach and fight for your rights all day citing legal clauses to local cops.

[–] FrChazzz@lemmus.org 7 points 2 days ago

Hawai'i addressed this problem a long time ago. All of our beaches are considered public and, by law, there has to be free public access (including parking) to every stretch of seashore (that itsn't on a military base). It's wonderful, compared to where I once lived in Florida where they'd charge you like $20 just to access the "public" beach.

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 101 points 3 days ago (16 children)

These idiots need to stop setting the minimum wage to fixed values, and set them to calculations based off GDP and localized (by county) cost of living, with an annual (or better yet quarterly) refresh on the calculation. Maybe some other variables, I'm not an economist, but the point is to have it adjust without needing constant legislative flights.

[–] Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca 22 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Fuck, they could agree to recalculate every decade and it would still be an improvement.

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[–] HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.com 19 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Great now do a wealth tax next please.

[–] stopdropandprole@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

wealth tax is the only (nonviolent) means available to redistribute the mountain of wealth which has been extracted from the working class. if we can't begin to claw back some economic ownership, inequality will grow forever until something breaks.

recommended anyone even remotely interested in wealth tax to check out Gary Stevenson on youtube.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Newsom is gearing up to veto California's newest attempt

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Wealth tax is kinda stupid because that just makes hiding all of your assets in a tax haven the default for rich people. Right now at least I believe most American billionaires are paying SOME tax in the US, because most nominally own some stuff in the US.

Actually closing the loopholes one can use to skirt existing taxes is actually more beneficial. And using your stock holdings as collateral for a loan should trigger a tax event, consider it realized gains. Also start taxing stock options when they've vested, not when the stock is sold (which might be never). When sold, the increase in value is also realized gains and should still be taxed too.

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[–] Darcranium@lemmy.world 59 points 3 days ago (6 children)

Would be better to lower the maximum wage

[–] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 25 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Yeah, that's called a wealth tax or marginal tax rate. And we need that too. Only problem is that over half of America has been thoroughly brainwashed into believing that a wealth tax would "ruin the economy" because multiple conservative think tanks funded by billionaires has spent the last 4 decades propagandizing that belief into them.

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[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 31 points 3 days ago (1 children)

No reason it has to be only one. Both is the correct answer

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[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 18 points 3 days ago (2 children)

definitely.

pass laws that say highest paid employees can only make 10x what lowest paid employees can.

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[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 18 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Rich people live off equity. Make them realize gains used as loan collateral!

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[–] jaykrown@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I'm in Chicago, I just recently put in my 2 weeks at work because I was given additional responsibilities with no raise in pay. I told them I expected $25 an hour up from $19.50 an hour because I would effectively be taking on the responsibilities of an entire other role in the company which was being integrated into my workflow. They couldn't do it. So now I'm looking for a job that actually pays $25 now because that's the bare minimum for a living wage today.

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[–] AmbitiousProcess@piefed.social 30 points 3 days ago (1 children)

For people who want the details:

Companies with more than $1 billion gross revenue or more than 500 employees would be scheduled to increase their minimum pay to $25/hour by 2031, while smaller employers would be on a longer timeline to reach $25/hour by 2038.

AKA no instant price shock

To ensure wages don’t lag again in the following years, the bill also requires the minimum wage to automatically grow each year to reach the equivalent of two-thirds the national median hourly wage.

This isn't adjusted to inflation, but the median national hourly wage tends to reflect a very similar trend to inflation as measured by the CPI, but lags behind a bit. If the base minimum wage was raised like this, it would bring that stat much more on par with inflation, if not higher than it as it stands now.

It also eliminates the subminimum wage, which is paid to tipped workers, youth workers, and workers with disabilities.

FINALLY! Just because you receive tips, are younger, or have a disability, you shouldn't be paid less than someone else if you've still gotten hired to do the job. You might be familiar with the tipped subminimum wage, which is where, if you receive tips from your job, instead of the $7.25/hr minimum wage, you can get paid as low as $2.13/hr as long as your tips make up the difference to bring you to at least $7.25.

This is one reason why so many places want you to tip now. The person doesn't get extra money, you just subsidize their employer paying them less out of their pocket.

...buuuuuuuuuut there's also a lowered minimum wage for disabled people... with literally no actual minimum. It's why one Goodwill was at one point paying a guy $0.22/hr:

https://www.cnbc.com/2013/06/21/some-disabled-workers-paid-just-pennies-an-hour.html

If I didn't know how screwed up America is, I'd assume that had to be satire, but nope, it's real. Subminimum wages being abolished is great.

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[–] KelvarCherry@piefed.blahaj.zone 10 points 2 days ago

The bill is cosponsored by Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants who, she said, worked multiple minimum-wage jobs just to get by.

They said "a pair" so I'm dropping that for the Illinois folks.

[–] orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 3 days ago

By the time they pass this, we'll need $50/hour minimum.

[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Beautiful, love to see it. Don't forget to tie it to inflation. My ideal is 3% or cpi, whichever is greater

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