Democrats want to make the minimum wage $17 an hour and give nearly 28 million workers a raise

• Sen. Bernie Sanders, alongside other progressives, is again trying to raise the federal minimum wage.
• He's introducing legislation to bring the federal minimum to $17 by 2028; currently, it's $7.25.
• However, past attempts to raise the minimum wage have been stymied by Republicans and moderate Democrats.

Sen. Bernie Sanders is once again pushing for a higher minimum wage.

Sanders, alongside 29 senators and nearly 150 House representatives, introduced new legislation to bring up the federal minimum rate for the first time since 2009. 

"It was the movie Wall Street where Michael Douglas played the character Gordon Gekko, who famously uttered the words 'greed is good,'" Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, said during a Tuesday afternoon event to unveil the legislation. "We want to make clear that greed is not good. Greed is not good for the American worker."

Under the latest version of the Raise the Wage Act, the federal minimum would climb to $17 by 2028. It's an effort that's most likely dead on arrival, as previous attempts to push through a hike — even in a House and Senate both previously controlled by Democrats — have failed to pass. 

A federal hike took a backseat during the economy's robust pandemic recovery, as many firms began raising pay of their own volition to try and lure in new workers. But as the labor market cools, and wages begin to moderate, progressives say it's time to once again turn an eye towards raising the nationwide standard.

"In the year 2023 a job should lift you out of poverty, not keep you in it. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality and record-breaking corporate profits, we can no longer tolerate millions of workers being unable to feed their families because they are working for totally inadequate wages," Sanders said in a press release. "Congress can no longer ignore the needs of the working class of this country. The time to act is now."

The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute has found that 21 million workers make below $15 an hour. EPI estimates the hike to $17 would give nearly 28 million workers a boost, impacting 19% of the workforce. Workers would get, on average, a raise of $3,100.

Many states have taken matters into their own hands and raised local wages, especially with grassroots efforts like the Fight for 15 gathering steam over the last decade. States enacting higher minimums have led to $87.6 billion more in economic output since 2012, according to a report from the National Employment Law Project, with those hikes and increased output supporting 452,000 jobs annually. 

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, argued that raising the minimum wage will spark a "virtuous economic cycle" in which both workers and businesses do better.

"Workers get a higher wage, they have more money to spend, they spend in the community, it lifts up businesses, those businesses do well, they hire more people and that cycle continues," Jayapal said at the event on Tuesday. 

The NELP report found that, while higher state minimum wages helped slash Black-white wealth gaps, those gaps grew in states that left their minimums untouched. Oxfam America has found that nearly a third of America's workforce make below $15 an hour, and workers of color are disproportionately more likely to make below $15. 

Multiple analyses find that if the minimum wage were tied to productivity — as it was up until the 1970s — it would be closer to $22 or $23 an hour range.

Frances Holmes, who works a minimum wage job at Busch Stadium in St Louis, Missouri, said she can't afford her rent after it was raised to $720.  

"Workers like me, we need your help," Holmes said. "I know what corporations do. What they do is we make the money, they get rich. They get rich, we get poor."