Dive Brief:
- Two-thirds of Americans favor raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, with 41% strongly supporting such a measure, according to a Pew Research Center poll. The current federal minimum rate is $7.25 an hour.
- Eighty-six percent of Democrats and democratic-leaning Independents support raising the federal minimum wage. More than half of Republicans (57%) oppose a $15 minimum wage. Twenty-nine percent of Republicans who oppose the increase said they strongly oppose it, according to Pew.
- Study results showed that most women and men, black, Hispanic and white people support raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, although support differs among the groups. More women (72%) than men (61%) support upping the federal wage. The results also showed that most people across all income levels support raising the federal minimum wage to $15. Seventy-four percent of people with annual family incomes of less than $40,000 support the increase, and 61% of those with family incomes of $75,000 or more said the same.
Dive Insight:
While the debate on the national minimum wage continues, the competition for talent has pressured some companies to go ahead and raise their own minimum wages without receiving a mandate from the federal government. Bank of America, for example, announced in April that it will raise its minimum wage to $20 per hour by 2021. The bank, which said it also incrementally hiked wages starting in 2010, raised its rate to the current $17-an-hour minimum in May.
Walmart's CEO Doug McMillon said he supports raising the federal minimum wage during the company's annual shareholder meeting in June. "$7.25 is too low," he said. "It's time for Congress to put a thoughtful plan in place to increase the minimum wage." The company raised the starting wage for hourly workers to its current $11 an hour last year.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a study that speculated raising the federal minimum wage could result in joblessness for 1.3 million U.S. workers. According to the CBO, a federal $15-an-hour minimum wage hike could also lower business earnings and raise prices for consumers.
