Chuck Grassley supports raising the minimum wage to $9 or $10
Iowa – U.S Sen Chuck Grassley said he could support increasing the federal minimum wage to $9 or $10 an hour. He assumes that this amount won’t appease Democrats in Congress, who support increasing it to $15.
Grassley, Iowa’s senior Republican senator, along with other members of his party said that raising the current minimum wage of $7.25 to $15 is too steep.
“I kind of have laid down a marker of something that would increase the $7 and a quarter to whatever inflation would bring it, and let’s say that could be $9 to $10,” he said on a call with Iowa reporters.
The House of Representatives, controlled by Democrats is pushing for a phased-in $15 minimum wage. In the late COVID-19 package, the party tried to include a minimum wage increase, though the increase is not expected to be included in the final bill.
In 2007, the wage was increased to $7.25 an hour, which is the current federal rate. This was the last approval by Congress. Iowa, Wisconsin has not yet increased its wage.
Grassley said that he is comfortable with an increase in the federal minimum wage to the reporters in Washington on Tuesday.
“Probably $9.75 to $10 and a quarter, somewhere in that range,” he said. “I think that falls in the category that, if we had had an inflation factor in it ’til now, it would bring it up to what it was at the $7 and a quarter in 2007, I think. You’ll have to check me out on that, I believe that’s right.”
Inflation calculator – Consumer Price Index offered by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that $7.25 in January 2007 would be worth $9.37 in January 2021 dollars.
Grassley on Wednesday referred to an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that calculates raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 would result in the loss of as many as 1.4 million jobs. But also said it would boost the pay for as many as 27 million Americans and would push nearly 1 million people out of poverty.
When Congress has raised the minimum wage in the past it has also included provisions to help small businesses avoid laying off employees who would make a higher wage, Grassley added.
If businesses are required to use the internet-based E-Verify system, GOP senators Mitt Romney of Utah and Tom Cotton of Arkansas are proposing a $10 wage, designed to prevent employers from hiring undocumented workers.
In a column in the Sioux City Journal last month, U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, Iowa’s junior Republican senator, has been strongly supporting the $15 minimum wage proposal, calling it part of “a liberal wish list from career Washington politicians.”
But lately, she told Business Insider that she supports some level of a wage increase, but thinks the decision is best left to states.
” I’m pretty adamant about states and localities kind of determining what’s right for their own state,” she said, according to the publication. “I do think it’s a discussion we need to have.”
