Squad Pushes $25 Minimum Wage in the Name of ‘Racial Justice’

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Daily Signal has obtained plans from a coalition of House Democrats showing it will push legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour and “tax the rich” in an effort to strip “power and privilege” from “the wealthy and well‑connected” to advance “racial justice.”

Reps. Delia Ramirez, D‑Ill.; Analilia Mejia, D‑N.J.; Rashida Tlaib, D‑Mich.; Bonnie Watson Coleman, D‑N.J.; and Chuy García, D‑Ill., along with representatives from national unions and advocacy groups, plan to announce the Living Wage for All Act at a press conference Tuesday.

“This bill is about holding corporate America accountable,” Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said in a statement obtained by The Daily Signal.

“While prices rise and profits grow, workers are still being paid poverty wages instead of a true living wage. That has to change if we are serious about dignity and fairness in this economy,” Appelbaum added.

Supporters argue the bill would shift the balance of power in the economy and advance broader political goals, including racial justice and voting rights.

“A living wage is about dignity, but it is also about who holds power in this country,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement. “It is tied to every other fight for civil rights — from racial justice, to voting rights, to economic opportunity.”

Johnson added that “when people are denied fair wages, they are denied the ability to fully participate in our democracy.”

Mejia, who led the successful push to raise New Jersey’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, said a higher federal minimum wage would create “an economy that works for all, not just the billionaire class,” and help Americans better afford health care.

“I’m proud to partner with Congresswoman Delia Ramirez on the Living Wage for All Act to raise the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour,” Mejia said. “This bill would transform millions of lives.”

However, research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston suggests that minimum wage increases can contribute to inflation. According to the Fed, “following a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, all‑items inflation is cumulatively 0.08 percentage point higher than average in locations with a one‑standard‑deviation‑higher share of low‑wage workers.”

Beyond raising wages, the legislation also calls for higher taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations, according to a press release obtained by The Daily Signal.

The proposal aligns with a broader push by democratic socialists to increase taxes on high earners, including initiatives such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s support for an 11.5% corporate tax.

E.J. Antoni, chief economist for the Thomas Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal that these lawmakers are seeming “to perpetually forget that the labor market is a market, despite it being right there in the name, and therefore the labor market abides by the law of supply and demand.”

“If you create an artificial price floor, you will create surpluses,” Antoni said.

The economist said the minimum wage is a government-imposed price floor, meaning the price cannot legally fall below that level. And while more people will want to work for the higher price, few business owners will be able to afford to pay it, creating a surplus.

“In the labor market, we call that surplus ‘unemployment,’ exactly what happens whenever the minimum wage is above the market wage,” Antoni concluded. “The law of supply and demand will not be conned.”