MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Congressman Steve Cohen introduced legislation Friday, which if passed, would immediately increase the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.
It's called The Living Wage Now Act.
Congressman Cohen statement:
“In such a rich nation, it is immoral that the federal minimum wage puts a full-time worker in a family of two below the poverty line. It is well past time to raise the minimum to $15 – and not incrementally, but all at once. Families are struggling and some employees are rightly treating fair wages as a collective bargaining issue. I hope that, with a new Labor Secretary and a forward-thinking Biden Administration, this legislation will be seen as a practical solution to meeting the needs of American workers and their families.”
In 2007, Congressman Cohen's first year in Congress, he voted for an increase in the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour, which became law. That was the first time the minimum wage had been raised in more than 10 years, and has not been raised since.
In 2019, Congressman Cohen voted for H.R. 582, the Raise the Wage Act, which would have raised the minimum wage to $15 gradually over seven years.
