$15 minimum wage: What's next?
| EDITOR'S NOTE
Hello,
President Biden's $1.9 trillion Covid relief and stimulus bill remains on track in Congress. The House is prepared to pass it as soon as today, and the Senate will take it up next.
But there was one major hiccup Thursday night: The Senate parliamentarian ruled that the bill could not include a $15 minimum wage hike.
Why is an unelected official making this decision? Because Democrats intend to pass the Covid relief package through a process called budget reconciliation, which only requires a simple majority for approval in the Senate. There's a catch, though: provisions of a bill must change budget-related items such as taxes and certain spending. The parliamentarian determined that raising the minimum wage in the legislation, as is, didn't meet the standards for inclusion.
The House still intends to pass its version of the bill with the minimum wage increase. The Senate, then, will have to strip out the provision and pass a version without it. Even before the parliamentarian's ruling, however, it wasn't clear whether the bill would pass with the minimum wage portion intact.
Moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have expressed skepticism about raising the minimum wage to $15. Without either of their votes, Democrats would be short of the 50 votes they would need to pass the entire bill. (Vice President Harris would be the tiebreaking vote.)
Still, several key Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said they would continue pressing to raise the minimum wage. Progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, the chairman of the chamber's powerful budget committee, was prepared to go even further.
A longtime proponent of increasing the minimum wage, Sanders on Thursday proposed adding an amendment to the Senate's version of the bill that could potentially earn an OK from the parliamentarian. It would aim "to take tax deductions away from large, profitable corporations that don't pay workers at least $15 an hour and to provide small businesses with the incentives they need to raise wages."
The Democrats face a tight deadline, March 14, before certain Covid relief programs run out and need to be replenished. We'll see in the meantime whether they have the will, or patience, to fight over the minimum wage.
Thoughts? Email Politics Editor Mike Calia at CNBCPolitics@nbcuni.com.
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