Congress moves math to outlaw virtual slavery and legalized poverty

The math is simple enough for a child to understand, and ugly enough to make that same child weep for the country she’s inheriting.

A person working 40 hours a week at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 earns $290 before taxes. That is $15,080 a year. That is less than the cost of a modest used car in most of America. That is less than what many Americans pay for a year of health insurance. That is less than the rent on a one-bedroom apartment in 98 percent of U.S. counties.

And that $7.25 figure has not changed since 2009, when Barack Obama was in his first month as president, when Michael Jackson was still alive, and when the iPhone was a three-month-old novelty.

On Tuesday morning, hours before a foreign king was scheduled to address a joint session of Congress, four Democratic lawmakers stood on the Capitol grounds and proposed something that sounds, in the context of Washington’s recent memory, almost unimaginable: a federal minimum wage of $25 an hour.

Reps. Delia C. Ramirez of Illinois, Analilia Mejia of New Jersey, Jesús “Chuy” García of Illinois, and Lateefah Simon of California introduced the Living Wage for All Act, legislation that would more than triple the current federal floor over a phased timeline.

Large employers would reach $25 by 2031. Smaller businesses would have until 2038.

Before taxes, unpaid leave, or deductions, $25 an hour equals approximately $52,000 per year for a full-time, 40-hour work week.

The bill would also eliminate all subminimum wages—the lower floors for tipped workers, youth workers, and workers with disabilities. No exceptions. No more $2.13 an hour for the waitress refilling your coffee. No more legalized poverty dressed up as an entry-level position.

“Growing up, I saw my immigrant parents and my neighbors working multiple minimum wage jobs just to survive,” Ramirez said. “Today, companies are reporting record-high earnings while working people struggle to survive. Minimum wage is not a living wage. That’s not right.”

The timing was not accidental. The press conference unfolded days before what organizers say will be the largest May Day mobilizations in years, and just hours before King Charles III was set to address Congress—a ceremonial moment that Ramirez used as a sharp political cudgel.

“Congress must stop entertaining Kings and the whims of wannabe kings and start working for working people,” she said.

That kind of language does not emerge from a lawmaker who expects a polite hearing. It emerges from one who has done the math.

The math, again: According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a single adult with no children in the United States needs, on average, $21.81 an hour to afford basic necessities. That is before savings. Before an emergency. Before a single birthday present or a night at the movies. A parent with one child needs nearly $37 an hour.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25.

That gap has been filled, for millions of Americans, by second jobs, by credit card debt, by skipping meals, by forgoing medical care, by living in cars, by doubling and tripling up in apartments designed for one family. That gap has been filled by the slow erosion of whatever the word “dignity” is supposed to mean in a country that pays a full-time worker less than the poverty line.

Seventeen years. That is how long Congress has let that gap widen.

Mejia, who previously helped lead New Jersey’s successful fight for a $15 minimum wage, put the matter in plain terms.

“Housing, gas, and grocery costs have all surged, yet the federal minimum wage hasn’t been raised since 2009,” she said. “This is unacceptable. No one working full-time should be struggling to survive. We need an economy that reflects the realities of 2026, not one stuck over a decade ago.”

“Living on $52,000 per year in New Jersey is possible but represents a tight bare essentials budget, even for a single adult with no children,” said Lisa McCormick, a New Jersey Democrat who supports the legislation. “As the cost of living in here is about 15% more than the national average, this is a welcome change.”

The bill’s two-track phase-in is designed to blunt the inevitable opposition from business groups. Large, highly profitable corporations would move first, reaching $25 by 2031—a six-year timeline from introduction to full implementation for the biggest players. Smaller employers would have until 2038.

The legislation also includes an automatic adjustment mechanism tied to typical wages across the economy, so that the minimum does not freeze again for another 17 years while lawmakers bicker.

The coalition backing the bill is not small. The NAACP, the Service Employees International Union, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union, the National Urban League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the National Organization for Women and more than 100 other organizations have signed on.

Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, made clear that for his organization, this is not merely a labor fight.

“A living wage is about dignity, but it is also about who holds power in this country,” Johnson said. “It is tied to every other fight for civil rights—from racial justice to voting rights to economic opportunity. When people are denied fair wages, they are denied the ability to fully participate in our democracy.”

The opposition will be fierce.

“Business groups have already signaled that a $25 federal minimum would kill jobs, drive automation, and crush small businesses, but those who do not want to pay a living wage are not the ones who are struggling to make ends meet,” said McCormick. “The same arguments were made against the $15 minimum wage, which now exists in some form in more than a dozen states and the District of Columbia. The same arguments were made against the abolition of child labor, against the 40-hour work week, against overtime pay.”

“Those arguments were wrong then,” said McCormick. “Whether they are wrong now depends on a question that Washington has spent 17 years refusing to answer: Is a full-time job supposed to keep a person alive, or merely keep them showing up?”

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, put it this way: “When educators must work two and four jobs to make ends meet, how can they focus on their students? A true living wage is essential—and long overdue—to restoring dignity for workers, supporting families, and ensuring people can fully participate in their communities and in our democracy.”

The bill faces a Republican-controlled House and a Senate where the filibuster has buried more than a hundred progressive proposals. Its sponsors know this. They are not naive.

But they are also watching the ground shift beneath Washington’s feet. Campaigns for $25 and $30 an hour are already advancing in California, Illinois, New York, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Voters and workers are not waiting for permission.

Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage, said the bill represents something larger than a number on a paycheck.

“This is what it looks like when politics begins to catch up to reality—and when democracy delivers real improvements in people’s lives, it becomes tangible,” she said. “A living wage is how we make that promise real.”

The king who addressed Congress on Tuesday will return to his palaces. The lawmakers who introduced this bill will return to their districts. The workers who filled the Capitol grounds—the janitors, the cooks, the delivery drivers, the home health aides, the retail clerks—will return to their second jobs.

The question is whether Washington will continue asking them to live on $7.25.

Seventeen years is a long time to wait for an answer.