Minimum wage in the United Stares will be $15 an hour by 2025, the House of Representatives decided in a 231-199 vote on Thursday, the Washington Post reports.
The phase-in from $7.25 to $15 an hour was initially supposed to take place over the next 5 years, but moderate Democrats extended the transition to six year.
“This is an historic day,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on the House floor ahead of the vote, which she said would narrow the gender gap in wages. “Today we wake up for a day of jubilation because of the sense of fairness this legislation engenders. We wake up with a smile on our face, showing the world with all the love in our hearts, and that love in our hearts is about fairness for the American people.”
The #FightFor15 Movement kicked into high gear in 2013 when McDonald’s worker Nancy Salgado was arrested after calling out former McDonald’s USA President Jeff Stratton for the criminally low wages the corporation pays employees.
Since that time, #FightFor15 has become a rallying cry across the country.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has already said the Senate will not take up the bill for a vote. In a world where the Republican-controlled Senate did vote on the measure—and in the unlikely event that it passed—it would be the first minimum wage increase in the U.S. since 2009.
