A group of Democratic lawmakers has introduced a bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour, a move that, if successful, would see workers in some states earn nearly $18 more than they are now.
Representatives Delia C. Ramirez of Illinois, Jesús “Chuy” García of Illinois, Lateefah Simon of California and Analilia Mejia of New Jersey introduced the “Living Wage for All” act on Tuesday, with the goal of increasing “the floor that working families need to meet the real cost of living in America today.”
Currently, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. It has not changed since 2009.
“This is unacceptable. No one working full time should be struggling to survive. We need an economy that reflects the realities of 2026, not one stuck over a decade ago,” Mejia said in a press release.
Which Employees Are Impacted?
In 2024, according to the latest available data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 80.3 million workers aged 16 and older in the United States were paid hourly, accounting for 55.6 percent of all wage and salary workers. An estimated 82,000 among those workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour in 2024, while 760,000 workers had wages below the federal minimum.
While the increase would benefit thousands of workers in every state across the country and the District of Columbia, for some, the changes will be dramatic.
While most states have local minimum wages higher than the federal level, five states—Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee—do not. In these states, the minimum wage would jump $17.75, from $7.25 per hour to $25 per hour.
In Georgia, Oklahoma, and Wyoming, the state minimum wage is below the federal minimum wage, so workers are generally subject to the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour.
The smallest increases would be reported in Washington, where the minimum wage is already $17.13 per hour; in California, where it is $16.90 per hour; and in New York’s Nassau County, Suffolk County, New York City, and Westchester County, where they earn a minimum wage of $17 per hour. In the rest of the state, the minimum wage is $16.
When Would the Minimum Wage Be Raised?
The bill, if enacted, would require employers with 500 or more employees nationwide or with gross annual revenues of $1 billion or more to raise their minimum wage to $25 by 2031. Smaller employers would be required to comply with the higher minimum wage by 2038.
After that, the federal minimum wage would rise periodically to make sure it remains equal to two-thirds of the national median wage.
How Likely Is the Bill to Pass?
Raising the federal minimum wage is a popular idea among Americans, as a 2021 Pew Research Center survey found that 62 percent of Americans supported raising it to $15.
But the bill would need to build consensus among Democratic and Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate to pass both chambers.
Whether that consensus can be reached is unclear, but there is bipartisan support for the idea; Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri and Democratic Senator Peter Welch of Vermont introduced the Higher Wages for American Workers Act in 2025, which proposes raising the federal minimum wage to $15, with annual adjustments tied to inflation.
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