Other outlets followed NBC’s lead with their own headlines. “Conservative Josh Hawley introduces bill to raise federal minimum wage to $15 an hour,” wrote USA Today; “Hawley bill would raise minimum wage to $15,” read The Hill; and CBS News ran: “Conservative Sen. Josh Hawley wants to raise federal minimum wage.”
These articles all explained that the bill is cosponsored by Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT). All four articles also included quotes from Hawley about economic headwinds confronting working-class Americans.
Unfortunately, these news stories failed to inform their readers that Hawley has a history of opposing minimum wage increases.
In March 2021, Hawley voted against a federal minimum wage increase to $15 per hour that passed the House. Afterward, the Missouri Independent reminded readers that “in 2018, then Attorney General Hawley opposed Proposition B, a modest proposal to gradually increase the minimum wage by eighty-five cents a year.”
Additionally, Hawley has never before cosponsored Democratic bills to raise the federal minimum wage since he was elected to the Senate. He never signed on as a cosponsor for the Raise The Wage Act bills in 2019, 2021, or 2023. (In 2019, the bill passed the House with a bipartisan vote, but was killed in the Republican-controlled Senate.)
Hawley’s past opposition to minimum wage increases and his apparently opportunistic populism have not gone unnoticed:
- Economic commentator @jcmedlock: “Josh Hawley wouldn’t even support or defend a minimum wage increase voters passed in his own state, how are people so gullible.” He added in a separate post: “It's not like opposing minimum wage increases is just an old position - Hawley wouldn't back the proposition that the public supported last year, and refused to speak out about his state GOP gutting it *this year*.” [Twitter/X, 6/12/25, 6/12/25]
- Lawyers, Guns, Money’s Scott Lemieux: “There was an actual floor vote on a $15 minimum wage in 2021. 42 Democrats supported it. Josh Hawley voted against it.” [Twitter/X, 6/12/25]
- Vox’s Dylan Matthews: “I think it's strange that the standard for Obama is ‘whip 60 senators and 218 Reps’ and the standard for Hawley is ‘introduce a bill with one cosponsor.’” [Twitter/X, 6/11/25]
Media critic Paul Waldman portrayed this as the latest episode of Hawley’s history of fake populism. Waldman specifically cited Hawley’s 2018 Senate campaign, during which he aired an ad defending coverage for preexisting medical conditions. But “the problem was that as state attorney general, Hawley spearheaded a multi-state lawsuit trying to get the Supreme Court to declare the Affordable Care Act — the law that for the first time made those very denials illegal — unconstitutional.”
Hawley’s supposed swing toward pro-worker populism is additionally undermined by his expression of support for Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” and his tariffs, which economic analyses show taking away money and resources for all but the richest 20% of Americans when you account for both of the policies. And contrary to Hawley’s insistence that the bill not cut Medicaid, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill will cost 10.3 million enrollees their coverage — including up to 196,000 of his Missouri constituents, according to a KFF analysis.
NBC News, USA Today, The Hill, and CBS News all failed to adequately inform their audiences of Hawley’s position on the minimum wage as they praised him for, at last, cosponsoring a bill to increase it. This failure has the additional effect of helping the fake populist Hawley rebrand himself as an ally of working Americans, when in fact he supports policies that will substantially harm them economically.
