Tom Steyer: A $22 Per Hour Minimum Wage Is What American Workers Deserve

STEYER: You also talk about raising the minimum wage. It currently stands at $7.25 an hour. Bernie Sanders wants to raise it to $15. But you’re calling for $22 an hour. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says your plan would — would certainly lift earnings for millions of people, but it would also cost millions of people their job.

STEYER: Well, let me say this, if we go back to 1980, Chris, and look at the minimum wage and just inflation adjust it, so there’s no increase, it’s just the same wage in 2020 dollars, OK, then the minimum wage would not be $7.25. It would be $11. That was — that’s no raise in the minimum wage in terms of buying power, just the same minimum wage. If you then looked at the increased productivity of American workers between 1980 and now, and split it, the way it’s traditionally been split, between employers and working people in America, that would get you to the $22. I’m not saying let’s go to $22. I’m saying that’s the fair number. That that’s the number that actually you derive just by looking and seeing what American workers deserve from 1980.