Neither presidential candidate has gone hard on raising the federal minimum wage throughout the course of their campaigns. But advocates of the policy change say they expect more from Vice President Kamala Harris.
“We were bugging the campaign for a long time: Please talk about this more openly. Like, run on this issue,” said Saru Jayaraman, co-founder and president of One Fair Wage. “And they’ve listened to us in terms of putting out to the press that this was her platform. There are apparently many billboards in swing states that say, ‘Kamala Harris wants to raise the minimum wage.’ But we need more of that.”
“There’s 14 million restaurant workers,” she added. “They have a 12% voter turnout rate. They need to hear their top needs prioritized every time you speak. That’s what will get them out to vote.”
Harris gave her first explicit policy proposal on the issue just this week. When asked about the federal minimum wage during an interview with NBC News on Tuesday, she advocated increasing it to at least $15 for the first time since announcing her candidacy.
Donald Trump has been characteristically noncommittal, dodging a question from a CBS News reporter about increasing the federal minimum wage as he hung out of a McDonald’s drive-thru window last weekend. Since Trump’s antics, Harris has been more vocal about raising the federal minimum wage, using it to draw a contrast.
“I absolutely believe we must raise minimum wage and that hardworking Americans, whether they’re working at McDonald’s or anywhere else, should have at least the ability to be able to take care of their family and take care of themselves in a way that allows them to actually be able to sustain their needs,” Harris said to a pool of reporters on Monday.
But to this point, Harris hasn’t emphasized the issue in the same way that Joe Biden did in 2020. He kicked off his presidency with a plea for a $15 minimum wage, something that was ultimately cut off by Republicans in Congress.
Since then, the political conversation has grown increasingly quiet. It hasn’t been a major talking point for either candidate for president. Ordinarily, this would reflect a potentially missed opportunity to connect with working-class voters in an election where economic stability and the cost of living are front and center. But strategists say it isn’t the winning message it has been in previous election cycles.
“That’s a promise that voters have heard for a long time, and I think that many candidates do find that it’s important to address,” Amy Morton, a Georgia Democratic strategist, said.
Georgia is one of a handful of states that doesn’t impose a minimum wage that is higher than the federal minimum wage — Georgia’s state minimum wage is actually lower than $7.25, at $5.15 an hour.
But, Morton said, focusing on raising the federal minimum isn’t persuasive enough on its own. “And that’s why I think that, from a policy standpoint, her multilayered approach to how we improve the quality of life for individuals and families makes more sense.”
Harris’ economic policy playbook is focused primarily on lowering costs and generating opportunity, with promises to cut taxes, lower the price of prescription drugs and make housing affordable. Just one sentence is devoted to the campaign’s plans for the federal minimum wage, despite economists projecting that increasing the minimum wage to $15 would result in wage increases for tens of millions of workers, even in places that already impose a $15 minimum wage.
“Workers’ wages at the bottom — while they are gradually increasing — will continue to not see very fast increases without some kind of force that counteracts employers’ ability to set wages too low at the bottom,” said Ben Zipperer, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute Action.
“I actually can’t think of a minimum wage ballot proposal that has failed at the state level in the past 25 years. It’s a very popular policy.”
Instead of focusing on the federal minimum wage, both Trump and Harris have focused the spotlight on wages for tipped workers.
Both Harris and Trump have plans to end taxes on tips. One Fair Wage is working to advance legislation and ballot initiatives in multiple states to end the subminimum wage for tipped workers — it’s an effort Jayaraman says the Harris team has been supportive of.
“They have thus far not only endorsed it, but there’s actual legislation that their team has put forward. I am hopeful that that means that a Harris-Walz administration wouldn’t just endorse it, but prioritizes moving legislation,” she said, referencing the TIPS Act, legislation introduced by Harris-Walz campaign co-chair and Congressional Black Caucus Chair Steven Horsford.
As Harris continues to look for ways to make strides with groups she’s failed to captivate in the way Biden did — like young people of color and Black men — Morton says her economic message is nevertheless resonating with Georgia voters.
“While she’s been part of the Biden administration, she is not Joe Biden. [She has] the real-life experience of having worked a minimum wage job when she was much younger,” she said. “I think that experience in dealing with that personally that Donald Trump simply does not have.”
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Violet Jira is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.