You may have thought Sen. Bernie Sanders’ $17 wage hike bill was bad news – just wait until you hear about the newest proposal by Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA).
In an announcement earlier this week, Rep. Fitzpatrick said he plans to introduce a new bill that ties the federal minimum wage to a $30-plus national average hourly wage, while also making adjustments based on regional cost-of-living, down to specific metropolitan areas.
If you think that sounds confusing, you’re not alone. EPI dove into the bill and figured out what the calculations could mean for every state metro (and non-metro) area.
The core of the proposed wage calculation starts with 40% of the “average national hourly wage” for private, non-supervisory workers. In two years after implementation, that percentage would climb to 50%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that average hourly wage was $31.06 in April 2025 – resulting in an immediate national baseline wage of $12.42 per hour, rising to $15.53 per hour in just two years.
From there, the bill requires that the national baseline be adjusted based on the Bureau of Economic Analysis-designated cost of living for every state’s metropolitan areas and non-metropolitan areas.
To estimate how this bill would change individual state and local minimum wage rates, EPI calculated regional estimates based on the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ latest-available data on regional price parities (a metric summarizing regional cost-of-living). In short, this bill would immediately raise minimum wages for all areas from $10.87 to $14.29. In two years, the minimum regional wages would rise to $13.59 to $17.86.
This would also include raising the federal tipped minimum wage up to 30% of the regionally-adjusted rate – in some cases more than doubling the current tipped base wage of $2.13 per hour.
Not only would this raise the federal minimum wage over 114% in just two years – it would also raise the minimum wage past many already-enacted state minimum wage rates.
The law would distinctly target lower-earnings states and immediately spike these state’s minimum wage rates:
- Alabama
- Georgia
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Mississippi
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- North Carolina
- Oklahoma
- Pennsylvania
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Virginia
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
Other states that would be immediately affected already have laws in place that would raise their state wage floors in coming years, including Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, and Ohio.
Even some higher-earnings states would be affected in the two-year term laid out by the bill. Based on current rates and wage laws, even the following states could see minimum wage spikes further than their current laws prescribe.
- Arizona
- Colorado
- Delaware
- D.C.
- Florida
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- Oregon
- Rhode Island
- Vermont
The ultimate result of this federal minimum wage proposal is a nationally-mandated wage floor well-beyond existing state and local laws, and beyond anything progressives have introduced in recent years. Based on the vast majority of economic evidence – this could have serious economic consequences, including more than a million jobs lost.