In policy proposals posted to her website, Harris called for an increase in the overall minimum wage and for the end of the subminimum wage for tipped workers.
It won’t be enough, it never will, but at least it raises it in the few states that have less than or no minimum. I’m guessing Georgia and Wyoming still have a lesser minimum because it just wasn’t worth the effort to change the laws.
There’s a chance they go further and make things better in the longer-term
If dems get the house and maintain the senate, there’s a decent chance that some dem reps will take a crack again at tying the minimum wage to inflation. There were proposed bills in the past by dems which would do exactly that
I keep going back to this whenever someone in a US politics discussion says “Harris’ campaign doesn’t go far enough in ___”…
Harris can barely promise anything truly special if Republicans have even one potent avenue of obstruction, so it’s up to US voters to deliver their voice towards what they want to see.
It’s not only up to US voters. It’s up to US citizens in general, and any workers who are working in the US, to advocate for themselves in forceful ways, including unionizing, striking, and reporting corporate crime by their bosses, among other things.
Politicians will vote for laws when they are forced to, not because the word “Democrat” appears next to their name. Election day matters, but so does every other day.
A full sweep. I don’t know if it’s possible this election (i.e. who is running) but the numbers need to change to enable progress.
That would be huge. Then the debate is back to what is a “livable wage”, and how can you calculate it for differing areas. It would be nice to have constructive arguments again.
My opinion is to break it up, have an overall federal, then state, then urban. Same with any type of UBI scenario since no one thing is going to fit all needs.
It won’t be enough, it never will
I’m old enough to remember Obama raising the federal contractor wage to $10.10/hr and conservatives absolutely melting down. Shortly thereafter, we got a slew of state laws that forbade individual cities from raising the minimum wage. And then we got a vicious crackdown on migrant workers, on the grounds that they were “stealing jobs”.
I’m guessing Georgia and Wyoming still have a lesser minimum because it just wasn’t worth the effort to change the laws.
Wyoming, in particular, is just warmed over feudalism. You either work for your O&G overlords as roughnecks and earn a better-than-Idaho standard of living or you work in the service sector as the servant class to the out-of-state roughnecks or you just exist as a landless vagabond hoping to survive the next winter.
Plus there are a few thousand bougie failkids living the high life in Jackson Hole on permanent vacation.
