McConnell Open to Minimum Wage Increase, but Against Quick Raise to $15 an Hour The top Republican in Congress on Tuesday signaled a willingness to increase the federal minimum wage. “It is true that it hasn’t been raised for quite a while, and I think it’s worth discussing,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington. “But we know the result of a $15 federal minimum wage increase all at once—1.4 million lost jobs. That’s not what we need in the middle of a pandemic,” he added. Democrats inserted a minimum wage increase in their COVID-19 relief package that the House of Representatives passed last week with no Republican support. The proposal would gradually raise the wage over four years.