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President Joe Biden scoffed when asked during a press conference on Thursday whether he expects to run for reelection against former President Donald Trump in 2024. He suggested the GOP might not even exist in three years.

"Oh, come on. I don't even think about I have no idea," Biden said when asked whether he'll be facing off against Trump. "I have no idea if there will be a Republican Party. Do you?"

Biden wouldn't promise that he'll run for reelection in 2024, but said it's his "expectation" that he will do so and that Vice President Kamala Harris will be on his ticket, calling Harris "a great partner."

"I've become a great respecter of fate in my life," he said during the first formal press conference of his presidency. "I've never been able to plan ... three and a half years ahead, for certain."

More here:
Biden says he has 'no idea if there will be a Republican Party' in 2024 - Business Insider

There was an era when New Jersey Republicans could be proud of their partys role in furthering the cause of ending discrimination against African-Americans. And the high-water mark of that era in Garden State politics was the election of 1985.

That was the year in which incumbent Republican Governor Tom Kean scored a landslide reelection victory over Democrat Essex County Executive Peter Shapiro. Going into 1985, Shapiro was viewed as THE coming superstar in the Democratic firmament of New Jersey politics.

In the 1985 gubernatorial general election, however, the Shapiro supernova was irrevocably extinguished, as Tom Kean carried every county in the state and actually won an astounding 60 percent majority of the African-American vote. In the words of that great political sage, Lorenzo Pietro Berra, a/k/a Yogi Berra, it never happened before, and it hasnt happened since.

The GOP 1985 triumph among Black voters was a tribute to three individuals: Governor Tom Kean, the then Department of Energy Commissioner Lennie Coleman, and the late New Jersey GOP State Chair Frank B. Holman, Jr. In the second Kean term, Coleman served as the Commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs.

Each of these three individuals served separate distinguishable roles in that memorable 1985 campaign. Since the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s, no Republican trio in any state has more effectively conducted outreach to and dialogue with the African-American community in any state in the nation.

Tom Kean set the tone of this relationship with his slogan, The Politics of Inclusion. For Tom, this was more than a mantra: it was a determination to have government decision making include in its process those ethnic groups and economic sectors that had been traditionally excluded. This was a key factor as to why Kean will rank in history as New Jerseys greatest governor of the Twentieth Century.

To me, Lenny Coleman is an authentic New Jersey hero. He is a proud African-American who overcame the most severe obstacles of racism to achieve outstanding success in the arenas of academia, government, and business. He was the ideal ambassador of the Kean administration to and from the African-American community.

My only regret: Lenny Coleman was a superb president of baseballs National League, but he should have been the Commissioner of baseball as well.

Frank Holman, a great patriot, was a Brigadier General in the US Air Force, serving during the Korean War. He had a gruff voice and a tough way of presenting himself, but that was all a cover for a heart of gold. His heart and strength made him the greatest street politician I ever saw in either party during my nearly four decades of involvement in New Jersey politics.

And as Tom Kean put it in his book, The Politics of Inclusion, Frank Holman was absolutelycommitted to reaching out to the people Republicans have always ignored. This made Frank a beloved figure among all New Jersey racial and ethnic groups.

Frank was a dear friend of mine, and I have often compared him to my all- time favorite baseball manager, Leo Durocher. Leo was a virtual father figure to Willie Mays, and like Frank Holman, he didnt care what was your race or creed, as long as you helped his team win. When Southerners on the Brooklyn Dodgers in spring training in 1947 circulated a petition in opposition to Jackie Robinson playing, Leo awakened his teamat 1:00 amand screamed, I dont care what color Jackie Robinson is I dont care if he has stripes like a f__k__g zebra! The man is going to win us a lot of ball games! Then Leo proceeded to tell the racist players on the Dodgers, in most colorful terms, that they could use that petition for toilet paper.

I could have seen Frank Holman doing the same thing if he had been the manager of the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers!

The triumvirate of Kean, Coleman, and Holman made me proud to be a New Jersey Republican. It was truly a party promoting racial and ethnic understanding.

Todays New Jersey Republican Party, however, under the leadership of Republican State Committee Chair Mike Lavery, is now marching in lockstep with the national Republican Party in a determined effort to suppress the African-American vote.

My hero of the 2020 presidential election was the African-American voter. The increased participation of African-American voters, men and women, was the key factor in the defeat of Donald Trump, an authoritarian racist who would have further destroyed the social fabric of America during his second term.

A major factor in the increased African-American vote was the passage of state statutes throughout the nation enhancing and protecting the ability to vote by mail. Republicans opposed passage of these statutes, claiming that they would result in voter fraud. This proved to be nonsense. Trumps owndirector of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs, called this 2020 election the most secure in American history.

The leadership of the national Republican Party knows this, and they are hellbent on suppressing the African-American vote wherever possible. They are engaged in massive efforts to erect barriers to voting by mail, and they also are trying to get states to require voter ID, which severely impacts the ability of African-Americans to vote.

Minority voters disproportionately lack government issued identification cards. Nationally, up to 25 percent of all African-Americans lack government issued identification cards, compared to only eight percent of whites.

And requiring these African-American voters to obtain voter ID places a further impact on their exercise of the voting franchise. They have to bear the cost of obtaining the underlying documents necessary to support the application for the ID,the expense of travel to the place of filing of the application, and the decrease in income attributable to the lost time at work spent in pursuit of the application.

There was a time nationally when the Republican Party could well be proud of its effort to both protect and enhance the right of African-Americans to vote. In 1965, one of the truly good and great men of American history, Republican US Senate Leader Everett McKinley Dirksen of Illinois played a vital role in the shaping and passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Today, the national Republican Party, massively infested with the racist cancer of Donald Trump, is led by a pusillanimous collection of morally myopic fools dedicated to the maximum possible vitiation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. They are at war against the passage of House Resolution One, the For the People Act, a vitally needed set of measures that will honor the heritage of those who heroically marched on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in 1965 and provide a permanent protection of the hard won African-American right to vote.

In the era of Tom Kean, the New Jersey Republican Party would have stood in firm opposition to the national Republican Partys effort to suppress the African-American vote by the erection of barriers to vote by mail and the implementation of voter ID requirements. Todays New Jersey Republican Party, however, has rejected Tom Keans Politics of Inclusion and replaced it with the Politics of Exclusion.

The new NJGOP Politics of Exclusion first manifested itself during the 2020 campaign when the New Jersey Republican State Committee, under the leadership of former Chair Doug Steinhardt, ina despicable act of blatant attempted racial voter suppression, joined Trump for President, Inc. and the Republican National Committee infiling suit to invalidate New Jersey Governor Phil Murphys Vote-by-Mail plan. I authored a column at that time denouncing the suit, No White Republican will be Elected Governor or U.S. Senator in N.J. for at Least a Decade.

https://www.insidernj.com/no-white-republican-will-elected-governor-senator-decade/

The lawsuit failed, and I hoped that the New Jersey Republican State Committee would thereafter refrain from further efforts to Suppress-the-African-American vote.

The Politics of Exclusion reigns supreme at the New Jersey Republican State Committee, however, and on March 2, 2021, the New Jersey Republican State Committee issued a report drafted by its dubiously named Election Improvement Committee, which advocated both the enactment of Voter ID and making the exercise of vote-by-mail more burdensome. The report had the endorsement of both Chair Mike Lavery and National Republican Committeeman Bill Palatucci. The link to the report follows:

https://www.njgop.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/NJGOP-EIC-Report.pdf

I cannot say whether or not Doug Steinhardt, Mike Lavery, or Bill Palatucci are personally racist. Yet it strains credulity to believe that either the aforesaid lawsuit or this Election Improvement Committee Report is anything but a blatant effort to suppress the African-American vote, motivated by the fact that the African-American vote leans so heavily Democratic.

During the era when the Tom Kean Politics of Inclusion prevailed in the New Jersey Republican Party, the message to the New Jersey African-American community was a positive one: We want to facilitate the exercise of your right to vote, and we hope that you will vote Republican.

Under the Politics of Exclusion which now prevails in the Republican Party both nationally and in New Jersey,the message to the African-American community is a negative one: We know you vote Democratic, and we will do everything possible to suppress your right to vote.

The Republican Party has been irrevocably poisoned by Trumpian racism. The party of Lincoln is now the party of hate mongers like Ron Johnson, QAnon, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. In New Jersey, it is also the party of State Senator Mike Doherty, who denies the existence of systemic racism. The profoundly anti-racist brand of conservatism of a William F. Buckley is totally ignored in todays Trumpian-dominated Republican Party, both nationally and in New Jersey.

No thoughtful right-of-center voter who rejects racism can any longer maintain allegiance to todays Trumpian Republican Party. The creation of a new center-right political party is sorely needed,both nationally and in New Jersey. How this could come about will be a focus of my future columns.

Alan Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as Executive Director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission.

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Under its New Politics of Exclusion, The New Jersey Republican State Committee Joins the National Republican Suppress-the-Black-Vote Effort -...

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There may be no politician better suited for a moment when democracy is under attack than Stacey Abrams. A decade ago, when few saw any chance of Georgia becoming a Democratic state, Abrams pushed to invest in turning out Black, Latino and Asian American voters, who had long been overlooked by politicians campaigning in the state.

And when she ran for governor in 2018, Abrams made voter suppression a centerpiece of her campaign, underscoring the way that America fails to live up to the promise of its democracy by denying the right to vote to so many eligible citizens.

Now many of the issues Abrams has been raising for years have exploded and are at the center of American politics. The Guardian spoke to Abrams, who is widely expected to run again for governor next year, about this uniquely dangerous moment in American democracy.

How is what were seeing now similar to and different from what weve seen in the past?

The coordinated onslaught of voter suppression bills is not the norm.

Whats happened over the last 15 years has been a steady build where weve seen bills passing in multiple state legislatures over time. It was absolutely voter suppression, but it was this slow boil. Its that terrible analogy of the frog in the water as the water starts to boil. Unless this is what you do and unless this is what you pay attention to, folks like me were watching, but it was fairly invisible to the untrained eye that voter suppression was sweeping across the country, especially beyond the boundaries of the south.

What is so notable about this moment, and so disconcerting, is that they are not hiding. There is no attempt to pretend that the intention is not to restrict votes. The language is different. They use the veil, they used the farce of voter fraud to justify their actions. Their new term of art is election integrity. But it is a laughable word or phrase to use. It is designed based on anything but a question of integrity. The truth of the matter is there is no voter fraud. The truth of the matter is we had the most secure election that weve had.

And therefore, their integrity is really insincerity. They are responding to the big lie, to the disproven, discredited and, sadly, the blood-spilled lie of voter fraud. And they are responding to it by actually doing what the insurrectionists sought, doing what the liars asked for.

In your view, how linked is this to race? Would we be seeing these kinds of restrictions if there wasnt that kind of explosion of turnout among Black voters that we saw in the election?

Well, I would say its inexorably linked to race, but I want to be really clear. Black voters are of course at the center of the target, but what is happening in Arizona, what is happening in Florida is also attacking Latino voters. They are attacking the energy and enthusiasm of Native American voters. They are attacking Asian American voters. While Black voters are of course at the center because of the historical animus that seems to exist towards our participation in elections, this is also about attacking other communities of color. And we are seeing it being done with an assiduousness and an attention to detail that is, as we said before, unparalleled, except for when you look at the actions of Jim Crow.

And then the corollary is that they are also attacking young people. Because it wasnt just the increase in voters of color. It was the increase in young people and its that cross-pollination of young people of color that I think is also ginning up a great deal of this anger.

What we are seeing are also bills that are designed to thwart young people taking possession of the power that comes with their generational might. They are the largest cohort. And they showed signs of leveraging that in the 2020 election. And now we are seeing a reaction to that, a response, that is lumping them in with every other undesirable voter class, which primarily is driven by race, by age and by income.

What would the implications for our democracy be if these measures pass and are enacted and upheld by the courts?

It would be the exact intention of voter suppression. Which is that we shut duly eligible citizens out of participation in setting the course of the country.

We will not have effective responses to challenges that disproportionately harm communities of color. We will not tackle the existential crises that we face as a nation, as a world. We will not hear conversations in the legislative body about racial injustice, about climate action, about bodily autonomy.

When you can cordon off and extricate entire communities from participation, their voices are not only silenced, the policies that have allowed their participation in just our larger civic life are also chilled.

The larger ethos is this. There are those who say, Well, OK these communities get harmed, its a dismal reality, they will not be moved by that. But as I keep repeating, when you break democracy, you break it for everyone. Because while they may start with communities of color and young people and poor people, there are intersections in terms of policymaking that affect those who want to be benefited by these processes. And benefited by these policies. Theyre not going to stop with simply poor Latino voters. Theyre also going to attack wealthy Latino voters who may need to vote in a different way because of the way they make their money.

When you break the machinery, you break it for everyone. When that happens, the durability of our democracy is immeasurably weakened to the place where we become just as vulnerable to authoritarian regimes, just as vulnerable to majoritarian instincts and just as vulnerable to the collapse of democracy as any other nation state.

You were quoted the other day about the need for businesses to come in and play a larger role in taking a stand against some of these measures in Georgia and elsewhere. Have you been disappointed to see the muted stances companies have taken?

As someone who served in the legislature, I am very aware of the delayed engagement that tends to happen with the business community. And so Im not surprised by the current reticence to be involved. But I am challenging the intention to remain quiet.

We are obliged at this moment to call for all voices to be lifted up. And for the alarm to ring not only through the communities that are threatened directly, but by those businesses that rely on the durability of our democracy.

Thats my point, the fact that no one can escape the scourge. We know that the consequences of a disconnected democracy, the consequences of a lack of civic participation are that we have a weakened civil society. That costs money. When people arent invested, when they feel that they have been pushed out of participation, they have no reason to trust or to conform.

And so for the business community, it is a danger to their bottom line, to see a disconnection develop and be embedded in state laws that essentially say to rising populations that you are not wanted and therefore we are not going to countenance your participation. Because if you tell someone they arent wanted theyre going to assume you cant say anything else to them.

It is a dangerous thing for the business community to be silent.

We have a conservative supreme court, were about to undergo another round of redistricting where Republicans have a clear advantage in the states again, a green light to use partisan gerrymandering. The filibuster in the Senate. I think a lot of people look at that and its so hard for them to have hope that any of this is going to get fixed or that there is a path to fixing it. Im curious what you see when you look at those institutions and how people should think about them as obstacles to achieving full democracy?

Id begin with the most efficient tool. And that is the filibuster.

There is a credible argument to be made that the exceptions that have already been accepted for the filibuster should apply to protecting democracy.

It is unconscionable that given the visible and ongoing threat to our democracy, that had its most tragic example in the insurrection on January 6, it is unconscionable that we would not treat the protection of our democracy as an absolute good that should be subject to an exemption from the traditional filibuster rule.

Every other mechanism will take time. Every other mechanism will require the inevitability of demographic change. This is one piece that will ensure that rather than 100 years of Jim Crow, which is what we had to survive last time Congress abdicated its responsibility with regard to election law, that rather than 100 years of stasis and paralysis and ignominy, that this is an opportunity for us to get it right.

This interview has been condensed and edited

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Stacey Abrams on Republican voter suppression: 'They are doing what the insurrectionists sought' - The Guardian

The city of Columbus announced Thursday thatit is ordering six officers to answer questions about potential criminal misconduct by other officers during summer racial injustice protests Downtown.

But the police unionsays those officers do not have to comply under the terms of the contract with the city, and that threats of insubordination charges are empty.

More: Complaint alleges investigators hired by Columbus using unconstitutional tactics to force officer interviews in police probe

On Thursday morning, the city Department of Public Safety said independent investigator Richard Wozniak, a retired FBI agent, issued "Garrity notices" to six police officers "compelling the officers to answer questions."

If officers don't cooperate, the announcement said, they could face departmental charges of insubordination. The announcement said the six officers are "strictly witness officers" and not the focus of criminal investigation.

"Information they can provide is essential to the ability to identify officers who may have committed a crime, and necessary for any prosecution of those who might be charged with crimes," the announcement said.

More: Cost of probe into possible Columbus police crimes during protests passes $50,000

The city's contract with Fraternal Order of Police Capitol City Lodge No. 9 says that no member officer regardless of whether they are the focus of the investigation or not is required to give evidence if the investigation could result in criminal charges.

"If a member has been advised that the investigation may result in criminal charges, the member's refusal to answer questions or to participate in the investigation shall not be considered insubordination or like offense," the contract says.

Glenn McEntyre, assistant director of public safety, said the city disagrees "with that interpretation of the contract."

The independent investigation, which was announced in June by Mayor Andrew J. Ginther, seeks to determine whether Columbus police officers committed any crimes while responding to civil unrest here that began on May 28, three days after the death of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police.

More: City seeks public's help in investigation of criminal misconduct during summer protests

Wozniak and former Franklin County assistant prosecutor Kathleen Garber were hired as an independent investigator and special prosecutor, respectively, to conduct the investigation.

Chapter 1903.01 of the city's ordinances requires police to investigate "whenever any person is physically injured or any property is damaged or destroyed by an employee of the city, or when city property is damaged or destroyed as a result of criminal action or a traffic accident."

Last week, Garber and Wozniak issued investigative subpoenas to five officers using a rarely, if ever, used section of Columbus City Code. Attorneys for the officers filed a complaint and motion for a restraining order, saying the subpoenas violated the union contract, Ohio's constitution and Ohio's rules for criminal procedure.

Garber withdrew the subpoenas shortly after the complaint was filed.

In Thursday's announcement, the city said Garber has determined that "there is probable cause to believe that someofficers committed misdemeanor crimes" and that other officers witnessed those crimes.

More: Pepper spray used as protests over death of George Floyd spread to Columbus

"Extensive efforts have been made to elicit the cooperation of those witness officers, including assurances of immunity from prosecution or administrative sanctions," the city said. "To date, only five witness officers have agreed to be interviewed, only after receiving a guarantee that they would not be criminally prosecuted. The other identified witness officers have refused to be interviewed or provide information on other officers who appear to have committed illegal acts."

The city said officers also have been provided an internal website to provide information anonymously.

"The only investigative means left to determine if a witness officer has information is by Garrity interview," the city said.

Garrity rights protect public employees from beingcompelled to incriminatethemselves during investigatory interviews conducted by their employers. The protection is provided under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states employeescannot be compelled by the government (their employer) to be a witness against themselves, and the Fourteenth Amendment's "equal protection" clause that covers public employees of municipal, county and state governments.

The protections are named Garrity rights after Edward Garrity, police chief of Bellmawr Township, New Jersey, who along with five other employees was told they must answer questions in a 1961state attorney general's investigation into whether they were involved in fixing traffic tickets in Bellmawr and Barrington Township or lose their jobs. Their statements were later used to prosecute and convict them.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned their convictions in 1967, ruling in Garrity v. New Jersey that the statements of Garrity and the other employees,made under threat of termination, were unconstitutional because they were compelledby the state in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The court ruled the option to lose their means of livelihood or pay the penalty of self-incrimination is the antithesis of free choice to speak or to remain silent.

The city said Wozniak has asked 60 officers to be a part of the investigation and55 have refused, 44 of them through attorneys.

In a statement, Garber said the focus of the investigation is accountability.

"If laws were broken, we will hold those responsibleaccountable," Garber said."It is concerning and disappointing that the people standing in the way of that accountability are fellow officers."

Mark Collins, who represents the officers who have been given the Garrity notices, said they will be pursuing legal options "to prevent the city from violating these officers constitutional and contractual rights."

"In Ohio, individuals cannot be forced to give interviews on misdemeanor crimes. That's the law," Collins said. "The contract requires the city to follow the law, so by ordering them to do something against the law, it not only violates the law but it also violates the contract."

Collins also said Garber's statement would imply the officers who are "strictly witness officers" could face criminal charges.

"If what she claims she believes is true, and if the officer doesn't respond to a crime they witnessed, it could be dereliction of duty," Collins said.

Collins also said if Wozniak and Garber have evidence, they could file the charges in Franklin County Municipal Court.

"If they have the probable cause, file the charges," Collins said. "File the charges and we'll see you in court."

Collins added that information provided in a press release from the city including an example of how Garrity works is incorrect, showing a lack of understanding by those leading the investigation.

"If an officer is given Garrity, they have to talk," Collins said. "If they don't, they can get fired for insubordination. They don't have Fifth Amendment rights at that point, but the information can't be used in criminal prosecutions. That's the whole point of having Garrity."

To date, Wozniak and Garber have been paid more than $100,000 combined for the investigation.

The city also hired BakerHostetler, a local law firm whose partners have previously donated to Ginther's campaigns, in a no-bid contract to investigate any administrative wrongdoing. That contract was for $500,000.

The city has not yet provided a dollar amount as to how much that administrative investigation has cost to date, citing the potential for more investigations to take place after Wozniak and Garber have finished their work.

The BakerHostetler investigation resulted in 49 reports, some of which involved multiple complaints. Of the 49 reports, only eight involved sustained allegations and only one of the eight resulted in discipline. That officer was given documented counseling for not filing the proper paperwork.

Three allegations were withdrawn, 28 were not sustained, 19 were unfounded and five were exonerated.

bbruner@dispatch.com

@bethany_bruner

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City issues order to force Columbus police officers to give evidence in protest probe - The Columbus Dispatch

While the COVID-19 relief bill brought the $15 an hour minimum wage.

Looking back in history, the fight for a minimum wage has been full of political struggle and labor conflict. Here are some notable developments in U.S. history.

The first state-level minimum wage law was passed by Massachusetts in 1912. Soon, other states followed suit over the next two decades. But the state laws were reversed by the Supreme Court in a case called Adkins v. Childrens Hospital of D.C., which ruled that a minimum wage violated employers and workers rights to liberty of contracts under the Fifth Amendment.

In 1938, at the height of the Great Depression, the first federal minimum wage was passed under Franklin D. Roosevelt. Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act to improve workers living condition and boost their purchasing power amid the colossal disruption in the American economy. The rate was set at 25 cents per hour, which is worth about $4 today.

Since then, Congress has raised the minimum wage 22 times under 12 different presidents. Most times, Democrats held a majority when Congress approved a minimum wage increase. The current level is at $7.25 an hour, set in 2009.

States and cities have the right to set their own minimum wage standards. Now, 29 states and D.C. have minimum wages above the federal level.

Since 1938, the federal minimum wage went up bit by bit every few years. However, the increase stopped in the 1980s, mostly under the Reagan administration. At the time, America ushered in a wave of conservative thinking that bolstered the idea of the free market. The argument against increasing minimum wage is that it would result in a decrease in jobs, because businesses would be less inclined to hire more workers.

The minimum wage has caused more misery and unemployment than anything since the Great Depression, Ronald Reagan said in 1980 about the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Reagan also suggested that employers should be able to pay young people at a rate lower than the federal minimum wage. He said that teenaged workers tend to be unskilled and a lower-than-minimum wage would help relieve the high youth employment rate, which was more than 18% in 1980.

In 1989, Congress passed an amendment to the 1938 law so that it applies only to businesses with a $500,000 annual revenue. It also mandates small retail businesses to pay its workers the minimum wage and overtime pay in any work week in which they either engage in commerce or make products that will be sold in another state.

The increase of federal minimum wage picked up again in the 1990s, rising from $3.35 an hour in 1989 to $5.15 an hour in 2007. That year, President George W. Bush signed into law the Fair Minimum Wage Act to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour in three stages over two years. It marked a victory for the Democrats who had been pushing for a change for the past decade. However, since 2009, the federal minimum wage has stagnated at $7.25 an hour, while the cost of living has become higher and higher.

In November 2012, a couple hundred fast food workers, backed by Service Employee International Union (SEIU), demonstrated under the banner of $15 in New York City. It marked the beginning of the Fight for $15 grassroots movement to demand a $15 hourly wage, a wage that people can live on.

At first, the demand to almost double the federal minimum wage was a fringe idea in Washington, even within the Democratic party. President Barack Obama endorsed a raise to $10.10 an hour in 2014. Hillary Clinton said that she favored a $12 an hour minimum wage in 2015, before endorsing the Fight for $15 effort shortly after.

The movement mainly focused at the state and city level. Seattle became the first city to adopt the $15 standard in 2014, following the victory of Ed Murray, a mayoral candidate backed by SEIU. New York and California, two large progressive states home to many of the members in the Fight for $15, also followed suit. Progressive activists then moved to moderate and conservative states like Illinois and Arizona. Since January 2014, 28 states and D.C. have raised their minimum wages.

Besides fighting on a local level, Fight for $15 also targeted big businesses like McDonalds, Walmart, and Target.

Now, the movement has long extended beyond fast food and retail. A $15 an hour minimum wage nationwide has become a mainstream idea widely embraced by the Democrats.

The most recent debate about federal minimum wage sees a divide among three camps, not conforming expected ideological or business groupings.

As for the long-held belief that a raise in minimum wage would kill jobs, the Congressional Budget Office said in February that a rise in the minimum wage to $15 an hour would result in 1.4 million job losses by 2025. Other studies have shown mixed results. Some even indicate that higher minimum wages increase employment.

That Congressional Budget Office assessment also estimated that raising the minimum wage would lift 900,000 people out of poverty.

Since the beginning of 2021, 20 states have raised minimum wages. Many fast-food and retail giants, including McDonalds, Amazon, Target, and Costco have committed to paying workers at least a $15 minimum wage.

But the fight for higher pay and labor rights continues. Experts say the new battlegrounds could lie in hero pay, tipped minimum wage, and joint employment.

The pandemic has highlighted how many people in America are living close to the financial edge. For years, working one full-time job has not been enough for many minimum wage workers to get by. Should a full-time job in America guarantee a living wage? NBCLX storyteller Cody Broadway explores how the system is working against our essential workers.

Link:
The Fight Over Minimum Wage Has a Long History in the US. Here's What to Know About It - NBC 6 South Florida