Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton stated a new position on the debate stage in New York on Thursday night: If Congress were to pass a bill mandating a $15 minimum throughout the country, as president she would sign it.
Debate moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Clinton, “If a Democratic Congress put a $15 minimum wage bill on your desk, would you sign it?” to which the candidate replied, “Well, of course I would.”
While rival Bernie Sanders has come out strongly in favor of a national $15 minimum wage and co-sponsored a bill in Congress that would achieve that goal, Clinton has taken a different approach. She supports cities and states that pass $15 minimum wages — which has already happened in California and New York — but has said she thinks the federal level should be lower, at $12 an hour.
She enumerated that stance again on Thursday night. “I have supported the Fight for 15,” she said, referring to the movement that began with fast food worker strikes in 2012 and has grown to encompass a number of low-wage industries with workers calling for higher pay and the right to form a union. “But what I have also said is that we’ve got to be smart about it… We want to raise [the wage] higher than it ever has been, but we also have to recognize some states and some cities will go higher, and I support that.”
Clinton said she supports a bill introduced by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and others that would raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020. That would bring it back in line with the same ratio it used to have with the median wage for all workers. Endorsing a somewhat lower federal wage while supporting efforts in more high-cost areas to go further is also in line with what some left-leaning economists have suggested.
“I want to get something done,” Clinton said. “And I think setting the goal to get to $12 is the way to go, encouraging others to get to $15. But, of course, if we have a Democratic Congress, we will go to $15.”
The Fight for 15 movement, however, has been consistently calling for a national $15 minimum wage. Sanders pointed that out on Thursday night, saying, “All over this country, people are standing up and they’re saying $12 is not good enough, we need $15 an hour.” While $15 is a larger increase than what the country has previously experienced, there is plenty of good research indicating that large minimum wage increases don’t hurt jobs and can in fact benefit businesses. Economists have even found that the low-wage fast food sector could absorb a $15 minimum wage.
The national debate over the minimum wage is pretty remarkable, given that just three years ago President Obama was calling to increase it to $9 while the furthest congressional Democrats had gone was suggesting $10.10 an hour. But a number of factors — including the loss of high-wage jobs in the Great Recession, the anti-income inequality message of Occupy Wall Street, city and state minimum wage increases, and the dogged activism of Fight for 15 — have combined to change the conversation.