Kamala Harris Won't Give Many Details On 1 Key Issue

Kamala Harris ’ presidential campaign posted a page full of policy positions on Monday, and it was no surprise that the vice president supports raising the federal minimum wage.

But how high does she think it should go?

The campaign website does not offer a number, and a campaign spokesperson declined to give specifics when HuffPost asked Monday morning.

The federal minimum wage is just $7.25 per hour and prevails in any state that doesn’t mandate a higher one. It hasn’t been raised in 15 years, primarily due to Republican opposition.

The general public broadly supports giving it a boost, and many states, including red ones, have done so in the absence of congressional action. Some state rates are now more than double the federal level.

But Democrats aren’t in total agreement on what the nationwide target should be. Harris might want to avoid getting pinned down on a particular number and alienating supporters who think it should be either higher or lower than what she proposes.

Democrats once coalesced around $15, thanks to the success of the union-backed Fight for $15 campaign, which began in fast food in 2012 and later spread to other low-wage sectors. But many progressives now say a yearslong phase-in toward $15 would be insufficient, especially following a period of elevated inflation, which has blunted some of the influence of minimum wage policy.

Last year, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) proposed hiking the federal wage floor to $17 in five years and eliminating the “tipped” minimum wage that allows restaurants to pay servers as little as $2.13 per hour before gratuities. Harris also supports ditching the tipped minimum wage, according to her policy page.

Sanders’ bill, the Raise the Wage Act , gained 31 co-sponsors, meaning 18 lawmakers who caucus with Democrats have declined to sign on. A companion bill in the House pushed by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) has attracted 171 co-sponsors out of 211 Democrats.

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris looks on during a campaign rally at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 5 in Pittsburgh on Sept. 2, 2024. Harris supports raising the federal minimum wage but hasn't revealed how high she thinks it should go.

Harris pledged to support a $15 federal minimum wage during her unsuccessful 2020 run for the White House, a standard position for Democrats in that year’s primary.

Although Harris hasn’t laid out the particulars for a minimum wage hike this time, her opponent, Republican Donald Trump, has never had a coherent vision for the minimum wage. He has contradicted himself so often on the issue that The Washington Post’s fact-checking operation once created a “ guide to all of Donald Trump’s flip-flops on the minimum wage .”

While campaigning for president in 2016, Trump used one of his favorite formulations for ducking a clear policy position: he was “ looking at ” a minimum wage increase. “I’m very different from most Republicans. You have to have something you can live on,” he said at the time.

But just a few days later, Trump sounded a lot more like a regular Republican, saying the federal government should stay out of it. “ I actually think that the states should make the decision ,” he said.

A couple months after that, Trump suggested he would raise the federal minimum wage — and also not raise it.

“ I would leave it and raise it somewhat ,” he said.

At no point during his one term as president did Trump push his fellow Republicans to increase the minimum wage.