Senate hearing to examine raising the minimum wage

Senate Democrats will take up President Obama’s goal to raise the minimum wage in a hearing next week.

During his State of the Union address last month, Obama called for Congress to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour. 

The Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing Thursday on indexing the minimum wage. Earlier this week Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) introduced a bill that would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2016 and then index it to annual inflation.

Some Republicans argue against raising the federal minimum wage because they say it can harm small businesses and stop new hiring. 

On Tuesday, the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee will hear from Richard Cordray, who is being renominated to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — a consumer financial watchdog agency.

Republicans are expected to block his nomination because they don’t believe the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should have a director. During the Dodd-Frank financial reform fight, GOP members said a board, not one person, should run the Bureau.

Details on these and other key hearings next week follow:

Senate Aging

- March 13, “Jamaican Phone Fraud Targeting Seniors”

2 p.m., 562 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Senate Armed Services

- March 12, “Oversight: U.S. Strategic Command and U.S. Cyber Command”

9:30 a.m., G50 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Subcommittee on Personnel

- March 13, “Oversight: Sexual Assaults in the Military”

10 a.m., 216 Hart Senate Office Building

Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs

- March 12, “Nomination of Richard Cordray to be Director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection”

10 a.m., 538 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation

- March 12, “Oversight of the Federal Communications Commission”

2:30 p.m., 253 Russell Senate Office Building

Senate Foreign Relations

- March 13, “Strategic Counterterrorism: Meeting Current and Emerging Challenges”

10 a.m., 217 Senate Visitors Center

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions

Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety

- March 12, “Job Corps Budget Shortfall: Safeguarding Workforce Training for America’s Disconnected Youth”

2:30 p.m., 430 Dirksen Senate Office Building

- March 14, “Keeping up with a Changing Economy: Indexing the Minimum Wage”

10 a.m., 428 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Senate Homeland and Government Affairs

- March 13, “The Costs and Impacts of Crisis Budgeting”

2:30 p.m., 342 Dirksen Senate Office Building

- March 14, “Border Security: Measuring the Progress and Addressing the Challenges”

10 a.m., 342 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Subcommittee on Investigations

- March 15, “Chase Whale Trades: A Case History of Derivatives Risks and Abuses”

9:30 a.m., G-50 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Senate Judiciary

- March 12, “Continuation: Gun-Control Measures”

10:15 a.m., 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building

- March 13, “We the People: Fulfilling the Promise of Open Government Five Years After The OPEN Government Act”

10:30 a.m., 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building

- March 14, “Continuation: Gun-Control Measures”

10 a.m., 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building

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