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delia ramirez
To End 'New Gilded Age,' House Progressives Unveil Bill to Raise Federal Minimum Wage to $25 Per Hour
"We need an economy that reflects the realities of 2026, not one stuck over a decade ago," said the newly sworn-in Rep. Analilia Mejía, who helped lead the campaign to raise wages in her home state of New Jersey.
Apr 28, 2026
A pair of progressive Democrats unveiled a bill on Tuesday that would raise the federal minimum wage to $25 per hour, considered the bare minimum a single adult needs to meet the cost of living in much of the US.
The Living Wage For All Act is the first bill to be introduced by the newly sworn-in Rep. Analilia Mejía (D-NJ), who won a special election earlier this month after helping to lead the fight for a $15 minimum wage in her home state of New Jersey.
Citing data from MIT's Living Wage Calculator, the Living Wage For All campaign backing the legislation argues that $25/hour is needed for a single adult in most parts of the country to afford basic necessities like housing, food, and healthcare.
As the cost of living has skyrocketed over the past decade and a half, the federal minimum wage has remained frozen at $7.25 and hour since 2009.
"This is unacceptable," Mejía said. "We need an economy that reflects the realities of 2026, not one stuck over a decade ago."
The bill is cosponsored by Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants who, she said, worked multiple minimum-wage jobs just to get by.
“I remember being in the fourth grade, and my mom talked about her job, and she was getting paid $4.75 an hour,” the 42-year-old congresswoman said during a press conference on Capitol Hill Tuesday. “Yet the federal minimum wage is barely $7.25, many years later.”
"Today, as we think about companies reporting record high earnings, working people are still struggling to survive," she said. "People are working full-time jobs and still cannot afford to live."
A USA TODAY survey from January found that around 40% of workers say their paychecks have not grown enough to meet the rising cost of living, which has been further exacerbated by spiking inflation caused by President Donald Trump's erratic tariff regime and war in Iran. Another survey conducted by Resume Now in April found that about half of workers fear their wages will never catch up to the cost of living.
While some states and cities have gradually raised their minimum wages above the federal level and have seen modest declines in poverty as a result, none have been raised to the point of being considered a living wage.
The bill introduced by Mejía and Ramirez would similarly phase in its increase to the federal minimum wage over more than a decade, with larger employers leading the transition.
Companies with more than $1 billion gross revenue or more than 500 employees would be scheduled to increase their minimum pay to $25/hour by 2031, while smaller employers would be on a longer timeline to reach $25/hour by 2038.
To ensure wages don’t lag again in the following years, the bill also requires the minimum wage to automatically grow each year to reach the equivalent of two-thirds the national median hourly wage. It also eliminates the subminimum wage, which is paid to tipped workers, youth workers, and workers with disabilities.
The bill is almost certainly dead on arrival in a Republican-controlled Congress. Even if Democrats retake both chambers come November, it would likely face an uphill battle to pass.
In 2021, the last time Democrats had a governing trifecta, eight centrist members of the Democratic caucus killed an amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to include a $15/hour minimum wage in then-President Joe Biden's post-Covid budget reconciliation package, the American Rescue Plan.
But as Democrats seek to address rising fears about America's "affordability" crisis, Saru Jayaraman, the president of One Fair Wage, said politics are starting "to catch up to reality."
"Across the country—from California to the Midwest to the East Coast—workers are organizing for $25 and $30 because that is what it takes to live," she said. "The polling shows this is not just popular, it is necessary."
“We cannot talk about affordability without talking about what people are paid,” added Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union.
More than 20 Democrats have signed onto the bill as cosponsors, including Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).
The effort is being spearheaded by the Living Wage For All Coalition, a national collective of labor unions, civil rights groups, and other economic justice organizations that are simultaneously pushing legislation to adopt a living wage in states like New York, Illinois, and Maryland, and municipalities such as Los Angeles and Washington, DC.
April Verrett, the international president of the Service Employees International Union, which has more than 2 million members across North America, said that “the introduction of the Living Wage for All Act is a powerful testament to the worker-led movement that is forcing a new baseline for livable wages.”
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Memorializing Children Massacred in Minab, Progressive Lawmakers Demand 'Not One More Bomb' Be Dropped on Iran
"Our dollars are advancing the pain of our global neighbors," said Rep. Delia Ramirez. "We here today are saying 'enough.'"
Mar 18, 2026
The lawn outside the US Capitol building was strewn with colorful backpacks and children's shoes on Wednesday afternoon as progressive members of Congress called for an end to President Donald Trump's "illegal" war with Iran.
They were there to memorialize the 168 children, mostly girls aged 7-12, who were killed when the United States bombed an elementary school in Minab on February 28 in the opening salvo of a war that has gone on to claim the lives of more than 2,000 people, including more than 300 children, according to reports from Iranian and Lebanese health authorities.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said each backpack and pair of shoes represented "an Iranian child who should still be with us today... but they were struck down by a Tomahawk missile."
Van Hollen described it as a consequence of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's crusade against what he's derided as "stupid rules of engagement."
"Those rules of engagement are designed to prevent civilian harm," the senator said. "They're designed to prevent a war crime."
The lawmakers described Trump's attack on Iran as a "war of choice" and an act of aggression that violated international law.
"There was no imminent threat" from Iran, said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). "There is certainly no plan for this war, and most importantly, there is no authorization from Congress."
Shortly after the war was launched, War Powers Resolutions seeking to rein in Trump's ability to use force without authorization narrowly failed in both the House and the Senate, with a handful of Democrats joining Republicans to kill the measure.
The White House is reportedly preparing to ask Congress for an additional $50 billion in supplemental funding to cover the cost of the Iran war on top of the more than $990 billion Congress has already authorized in last summer's GOP budget bill and the latest funding package.
Most Democrats have taken a firm line against more funding, which would require seven of their votes to pass the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, though some pro-war Democrats have signaled a willingness to fund the war, according to reporting earlier this month.
"Civilians in Iran aren't the only ones who are paying the price," said Rep. Sarah Jacobs (D-Calif.). "Our service members and the American people are too."
She noted that 13 members of the US military have been killed since the war was launched less than two weeks ago, saying, "I fear that this number will grow."
Based on Pentagon estimates provided to Congress earlier this month, the war is projected to have already cost US taxpayers more than $24 billion as of Wednesday.
Jacobs said she would oppose "any defense supplemental package" because "every dollar Congress spends on this war without ever authorizing it tells this president and every future president that they can drag this country into any conflict they want and dare us to defund the troops."
"From Palestine to Iran, our bombs are killing women, they're killing children... our dollars are advancing the pain of our global neighbors," said Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) "We here today are saying 'enough.'"
She called for Congress to pass her Block the Bombs Act, which would cut off "offensive" US military funding to Israel, and to pass a war powers resolution limiting Trump's authority to continue striking Iran.
"Not one more dollar for a war with Iran," Ramirez said. "Not one more excuse, not one more bomb."
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Markey Applauded for Proposal to Make Wealthiest Americans Pay Investment Tax
One advocate called the bill an "important step forward in reducing historic, extreme, and democracy-destabilizing levels of economic inequality in America."
Mar 17, 2026
In a move cheered by economic justice advocates, US Sen. Ed Markey on Tuesday introduced the Senate version of the bicameral Equal Tax Act, a bill that would "create equal tax rates for all forms of income for individuals with incomes over $1 million."
"The wealthiest individuals in our society use loopholes and tax dodging schemes to avoid paying their fair share," Markey (D-Mass.) said in an introduction to the bill. "They get away with it because our tax code rewards wealth over work—giving breaks to those that trade stocks over those that punch clocks."
The legislation—which was first introduced in the House of Representatives last year by Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.)—seeks to make the tax code more fair by making billionaires and multimillionaires pay income tax on passive investments, as if they earned their money through labor, by raising the top marginal rate from the current 20% to 37%.
Right now, billionaires can pay less in taxes on their stock trades than teachers or nurses that educate our children and care for us in emergencies. My Equal Tax Act would stop rewarding wealth more than work by making the ultra-wealthy pay taxes like millions of working people.
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— Senator Ed Markey (@markey.senate.gov) March 17, 2026 at 2:54 PM
Specifically, the Equal Tax Act would:
- Limit the lower preferential tax rate for long-term capital gains and dividends to incomes under $1 million;
- End the stepped-up basis loophole and disrupt the “buy, borrow, die” strategy used by the wealthy to avoid taxation by treating capital gains as realized at the time of gift or death, with exclusion allowances of up to $1 million in gains;
- Enact a lifetime limit of $1 million on the use of like-kind exchanges on real estate gains; and
- Limit the pass-through deduction to incomes under $1 million.
Markey's office said Tuesday that, if passed, the Equal Tax Act would raise an estimated $300 billion in revenue over 10 years.
"Teachers, nurses, and millions of working people are the ones who keep our country running, but our tax code rewards wealth over work,” said Markey. “The Equal Tax Act brings fairness to our tax code by requiring millionaires and billionaires to pay taxes on investment income the same way working people pay taxes on income from their labor."
Ramirez noted how plutocrats like President Donald Trump and tech titans Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg "have extorted tax benefits from the American people."
"For far too long, they have exploited an unfair tax system that makes the rich richer at the expense of working families," the congresswoman added. "It is time we ensure that the ultrawealthy pay their fair share. I am excited to work with Sen. Markey in the bicameral introduction of the Equal Tax Act to build a fairer tax system that ensures working families have everything they need to thrive."
Morris Pearl, chair of the fair taxation advocacy group Patriotic Millionaires, said in a statement, “For decades, we have been playing a game of economic Jenga where we pull from the bottom and the middle, load it all on top, and then wonder why the whole thing is about to fall down."
"We end up with an unfair system that allows for oligarchic wealth to concentrate in the hands of a few individuals," Pearl continued. "That’s because right now in America, our tax code makes people who have jobs and work for a living pay far higher tax rates than people who make money from investments or inheritances."
"The money that investors like me make passively from our wealth should not be taxed any less than the money millions of Americans make through their sweat," he asserted. "By closing major loopholes, the Equal Tax Act would ensure that the ultrarich pay income taxes just like all Americans who work for a living and have taxes deducted from their paychecks every week."
"The Patriotic Millionaires are thrilled to see Sen. Markey take this important step forward in reducing historic, extreme, and democracy-destabilizing levels of economic inequality in America," Pearl added.
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