Biden set to push minimum wage hikes

President-elect Joe Biden’s administration is likely to push for raising the minimum wage at the federal and local levels next year through any means available.

Biden’s economic team includes several labor economists who are expected to push for increasing worker earnings through executive actions, federal legislation in Congress, and use of their bully pulpit to encourage state and local governments to raise their own minimum wages. 

Much of Biden's ambitious liberal campaign agenda has been imperiled by Democrats' inability to win a strong majority in the Senate. Raising minimum wages, though, is one goal that liberals see as achievable in the circumstances. Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel wrote this week that Biden could persuade a handful of centrist Republican senators to join Democrats in raising the minimum wage. 

Those expected to help with this push include Cecilia Rouse, a well-known labor economist, who has been chosen to head Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers. She will be joined on the council by two other strong proponents of minimum wages, Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey.