Pelosi celebrates 'historic day' as House passes doomed $15 federal minimum wage bill

The House of Representatives has just passed a bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The legislation, which would raise the federal minimum wage for the first time since 2009 from $7.25 to $15 by 2025, passed on Thursday in a 231-199 vote, The Washington Post reports. The vote mostly occurred across party lines, with three Republicans supporting it.

Activists in recent years have pushed for the federal minimum wage to be raised to $15 an hour, as some states have done, as part of a movement known as Fight for $15. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) celebrated this "historic day" on Thursday, saying that "no one can live in dignity with a $7.25 an hour wage," Reuters reports.

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Republicans opposed the bill, saying it would result in the loss of jobs; a recent Congressional Budget Office report said the legislation would increase wages for up to 27 million people but result in 1.3 million jobs being lost, The New York Times reports. The bill is not expected to advance further. "This would depress the economy at a time of economic boom," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Thursday, per Reuters. "We're not going to be doing that in the Senate."