MEDIA ADVISORY: Sanders to Make Announcement on Federal Minimum Wage

WASHINGTON, May 1 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, on Thursday outside the U.S. Capitol will be joined by workers, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry, and Economic Policy Institute President Heidi Shierholz as he makes an announcement on the federal minimum wage.

“Congress can no longer ignore the needs of the working class of this country,” Sanders wrote in a recent op-ed in The Guardian. “At a time of massive and growing income and wealth inequality and record-breaking corporate profits, we must stand up for working families – many of whom are struggling every day to provide a minimal standard of living for their families.”

The federal minimum wage was last raised in 2009 to $7.25 an hour. Since then, it has lost nearly 30 percent of its purchasing power, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Since 2013, twelve states – New Jersey, South Dakota, Arkansas (twice), Alaska, Washington, Maine, Colorado, Arizona, Missouri, Florida, Nevada and Nebraska (twice) – have voted on ballot initiatives to raise their state’s minimum wage. Every single one of these initiatives passed, none with less than 55 percent of the vote. In the recent November 2022 midterm election, two states that elected Republican governors, Nebraska and Nevada, also approved minimum wage increases. In 2020, the citizens of Florida, with a Republican governor and two Republican senators, also voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Details
What: Sanders Makes Announcement on Federal Minimum Wage
Who: Sen. Bernie Sanders, Chairman, HELP Committee;
Liz Shuler, President, AFL-CIO; 
Mary Kay Henry, International President, SEIU; 
Heidi Shierholz, President, Economic Policy Institute. 
When: 11 a.m. ET, Thursday, May 4, 2023
Where: Senate Swamp