Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) this week introduced a plan to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour, Breitbart reports.
No, Hawley has not joined forces with the Democrats on this issue. His plan has an important twist.
Standing up to “giant corporations and liberal elite”
What Hawley actually proposed was a piece of legislation that would increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour for Americans who are employed by billion-dollar corporations. In other words, under Hawley’s proposal, corporations with revenue of $1 billion or more would have to pay their employees at least $15 an hour.
The idea is to give many Americans a raise, while at the same time protecting small businesses who simply cannot afford such a minimum wage increase.
Hawley released a statement about his proposal on Friday.
“In this moment of crisis, our country needs us to stand up and say, ‘We will not be ruled by giant corporations and liberal elite,’” Hawley said. “We will not be told what to do by these modern-day oligarchs. What we need is a new nationalism, a new agenda to make the rule of the people real in this country and give the people American back, give it back to them.”
The Democrats’ plan
President Joe Biden and the Democrats, of course, have recently been pushing a plan of their own. They want to increase the federal minimum wage for everyone to $15 an hour.
Proponents of this plan claim that this would help to lift millions of people out of poverty. Critics, on the other hand, are quick to point out that at the same time it would cost millions of people their jobs as many employers will be forced to lay employees off because they cannot afford to pay them this new minimum wage.
Biden and the Democrats are trying to get this minimum wage increase passed as part of the latest coronavirus relief package. The advantage for them is that this package is going to be passed using reconciliation, meaning that only a simple majority is needed in the Senate.
Not all Senate Democrats are on board with passing the minimum wage increase in this way. And so, at this point, it is unclear whether it will actually be included in the relief bill or not.
Hawley’s other plan
In addition to this minimum wage increase proposal, Hawley has also been pushing a piece of legislation called the Blue Collar Bonus. This plan would give employees of small businesses who make below the median wage an automatic tax credit based on the number of hours worked.
As Hawley is demonstrating with both proposals, the Republican Party is now the party of the working class.
The post Sen. Hawley introduces his own version of the Democrats’ minimum wage increase first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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