Statement: Raising the national minimum wage to $15 per hour “would destroy up to 3.7 million jobs.”
Would raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour destroy up to 3.7 million jobs in the United States?
That’s what GOP House Minority Leader and California Rep. Kevin McCarthy claimed in the headline of a press release on Tuesday as Democrats in Congress began debating the move. On Twitter the same day, McCarthy wrote the wage hike could put nearly 4 million Americans out of work.
The Biden Administration last month proposed raising the federal minimum hourly pay from $7.25 to $15, with increases of about $1.50 every year for five years.
Movie theater owners fearful of minimum wage increase
February 12, 2021 by:
Congress is in the midst of pushing a new COVID-19 stimulus package and part of that package includes a federal minimum wage increase. The minimum wage has remained at $7.25 since 2009, depending on your state, and movie theater owners are warning that a federal minimum wage increase would be disastrous for their business in the wake of the pandemic.
The movie theater business was demolished in 2020 as movie theaters began to shutter in March of last year due to the pandemic. In the subsequent months, some locations in certain states have reopened but at limited capacity while major markets such as Los Angeles and New York City, remain closed. In fact, as of this writing,
GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy claimed raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour “would destroy up to 3.7 million jobs.” That estimate relies on the high-end of an old report.
(AP Photo/Mike Groll, File)
The refusal of the Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi in the House, to come to the table to fashion a COVID relief package prior to the election played a significant role in late-deciding voters moving in the direction of Joe Biden based on the expectation that a more cooperative relationship between the Administration and Congress would lead to an agreement.
The last-minute failure to reach a deal in early January, which broke down over the size of the relief check to be sent to each family, contributed significantly to the GOP loss of both runoff contests for the Georgia Senate seats.