Bernie Sanders plan for a $15 federal minimum wage, like his plan for a universal single-payer health plan, is too “pie in the sky,” according to Hillary Clinton, and many of her supporters, including right here.

They’re not. They’re doable — we just need leaders who fight for them.

BACK in November 2012, when Alterique Hall, an $8-an-hour McDonald’s cashier in New York, joined 200 fast-food workers in the first one-day strike for the Fight for $15 campaign, many scoffed at their demand for $15 an hour as pie in the sky. Frustrated with his meager pay, Mr. Hall said, “It’s time for a change.” Three and a half years later, that change is starting to arrive. Last Monday, Gov. Jerry Brown of California announced a deal with state lawmakers to raise California’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022 — a move expected to lift pay for five million workers. And late Thursday Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York reached a deal with legislative leaders to adopt a $15 minimum wage in New York City in 2018 and in its suburbs in 2021, with a $12.50 minimum in upstate New York. www.nytimes.com/...

ADDED: Forgot to mention Seattle, Washington, the first big American city to raise the minimum wage to $15. (Without the sky falling. More recent study here.)

Again: These things are doable. W e just need leaders who fight for them. Not people who call them “pie in the sky.”

Fifty-nine percent of Americans, including 84 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of independents, support a $15 minimum wage, according to a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, a nonpartisan research group. Just 32 percent of Republicans do.

These things are doable. W e just need DEMOCRATIC PARTY leaders who fight for them. Not Dems who call them “pie in the sky.”​

• Bernie Sanders: “A Living Wage”

• Bernie Sanders: ”Medicare For All”

• Bernie Sanders: “It’s Time to Make College Tuition Free and Debt Free”

• More

These things are doable. W e just need DEMOCRATIC PARTY leaders who fight for them.

Update: For all the Dems in the thread using Republican arguments against a $15 minimum wage: they’re fighting right now for a mimimum wage increase in Australia — where the current national minimum wage is $17.29 an hour. (That’s $13.28 US right now, but it was about the same when the Aussie dollar was on par with the US just a few years ago. And trust me — the country hasn’t fallen to pieces.)

And holy shit, this quote: