One of the biggest fights in the waning days of the General Assembly involves raising the minimum wage from the current federal $7.25 an hour.

Despite support for the increase by Democrats, who hold the majority in both the House of Delegates and the state Senate, there is still a chance that legislation to raise the minimum wage could die this year.

With the assembly scheduled to adjourn on Saturday, March 7, the only thing that currently is clear is that the two houses are sharply split.

Under the House version of the bill spearheaded by Delegate Jeion Ward of Hampton, chair of the House Labor and Commerce Committee, the minimum wage would rise statewide from $7.25 an hour to $10 an hour effective July 1, followed by a $1 a year increase to reach $15 an hour by 2025.

Delegate Ward’s bill, which passed the House on a 55-45 party-line vote over Republican opposition, also would require domestic workers, maids and agriculture laborers to be covered by minimum wage laws. Currently, they are excluded.

The bill also states that beginning in 2026, the minimum wage would increase annually based on inflation.

Meanwhile, the Senate’s 21-member Democratic majority is supporting a far weaker bill. Under that proposal, workers would have to wait until July 1, 2021, to get a $1.25 an hour increase to $9.50 an hour. The bill would increase the minimum wage to $11.50 an hour by 2023, then index further increases to inflation as reported in the Consumer Price Index.

The Senate bill also would continue to allow domestic workers, maids and farm workers to be paid less than minimum wage. It also would create a two-tier wage system that would allow students age 22 or younger who work 20 hours a week or less to be paid 75 percent of the minimum wage.

Also, after 2023, the Senate bill would break the state into regions, with Northern Virginia workers gaining an extra $1 an hour, while leaving a lower minimum wage in the rest of Virginia.

All four African-American senators, including Richmond Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan, voted for the Senate version of the bill, which narrowly passed 21-19 over the united opposition of Republicans who consider it an anti-business and anti-growth measure.

Sen. Joseph D. “Joe” Morrissey, who represents Petersburg and parts of Richmond, also voted to approve the measure.

Cost appears a factor in the House-Senate divide. According to financial impact statements, the House bill would cost the state an additional $250 million a year by 2026, while the Senate version would raise the state’s costs about $75 million a year.

The 23-member Virginia Legislative Black Caucus is lobbying to kill the Sen- ate’s regional approach. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the VLBC announced its opposition to anything but a statewide minimum wage increase, implying members would join Republicans to kill the bill if the regional approach emerged from a con- ference committee seeking to reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions of the legislation.

The VLBC statement condemned the regional approach as hitting hardest at African-American workers, 70 percent of whom live outside Northern Virginia.

Under the regional approach, the VLBC estimated that minimum wage workers in Richmond and Hampton Roads would have to wait another 10 to 12 years to get $15 an hour.

The statement also condemns the Senate bill’s exclusion of domestic workers, maids and farm workers — a majority of whom are people of color — from the minimum wage, describing the exclusion as a continuation of the racism that has been part of the minimum wage legislation since its inception.

In the VLBC release, Sen. L. Louise Lucas of Portsmouth joined in bemoaning the Senate version for which she voted.

She noted that African-American workers average 71 cents in wages for each $1 paid to white workers.

“We need to close that gap,” Sen. Lucas stated. “A regional approach to raising the minimum wage would not help achieve this necessary goal.”

“We support a statewide increase in the minimum wage that doesn’t discriminate against workers based upon where they live,” stated Delegate Lamont Bagby of Henrico, chairman of the VLBC.