Left-wing Democrats plan to turn up the heat on President Biden to pass a minimum wage hike despite it being ejected from his $1.9 trillion spending bill.
The Senate parliamentarian ruled late Thursday that the hike, to $15 per hour from $7.25, must be removed from the legislation under budget rules.
But socialist Sen. Bernie and his faction in Congress have fresh moves ready to go. One would raise taxes on business that failed to get into line.
Democratic political commentator Christopher Hahn said the minimum wage fight is far from over because it is widely popular with the public.
“I wouldn’t count the minimum wage out just yet,” the Aggressive Progressive podcast host said. “I’d say voting against the minimum wage is more of a problem than voting for it.”
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But Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough put up a major roadblock with her ruling on Thursday night.
MacDonough, who was appointed by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2012, ruled a minimum wage raise cannot be incorporated in the COVID-19 spending package because Democrats are relying on reconciliation to bypass the need for 60 votes in the upper chamber. Through that budgetary process, the spending bill can clear the Senate — if all 48 Democrats plus Sanders and fellow independent Maine Sen. Angus King endorse it. Vice President Kamala Harris would then be asked to break the 50-50 deadlock.
But even that lower 50-vote threshold is proving troublesome for Biden as the White House tries to wrangle its colleagues on Capitol Hill. For instance, while Sanders has been insistent on the $15 minimum wage provision, Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, another Democratic centrist, have voiced their opposition to it. And that’s vexing for Biden, who had hoped to sign the legislation into law before some COVID-19 benefits expire on March 14 and ahead of his address to a joint session of Congress.
For Republican strategist Alex Conant, the extent to which removing the minimum wage language makes the package more palatable to the centrists, “it’s probably a short-term win for Biden.”
“Failure to pass the COVID relief bill would raise real questions about Biden’s ability to secure any legislative wins, especially since he’s doing this along partisan lines,” he said.
The White House has dodged questions on its response to Sanders’s so-called plan B: tax deductions for “large, profitable corporations” that don’t pay their employees at least $15 an hour and incentives for small businesses to raise wages.
“We’re well aware of Sen. Sanders’s commitment and steadfast commitment to raising the minimum wage. The president shares that commitment, but we have not reviewed that proposal,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday of the Senate Budget Committee chairman.
Oregon Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has offered specifics building on Sanders’s amendment. Wyden, on Friday, floated the possibility of imposing a 5% penalty on big corporations’ total payroll tax if any of its workers earned less than a certain amount in a financial year, in addition to an income tax credit for small businesses equal to 25% of wages, up to $10,000.
Simultaneously, House Democrats are imploring their Senate counterparts to override MacDonough, a step their friends in the other chamber are unlikely to take.
The Brookings Institution’s Darrell West expects Sanders and Wyden would seek a vote on their pitch, but it was uncertain whether it would attract majority support.
“The party is in agreement on most of that bill, but there were divisions over the size of the minimum wage increase,” West, who focuses on the future of work, said.
There is also a growing consensus among Republicans that the minimum wage could be raised, given it hasn’t been evaluated since 2009 and adds up to $15,080 if an employee works 40 hours a week for all 52 weeks of the year.
Manchin, whose home state of West Virginia backed former President Donald Trump over Biden by almost 40 percentage points, has counteroffered a raise to $11 over two years. Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Nebraska and Mitt Romney of Utah have proposed upping the wage to $10 over four years in exchange for a mandate compelling employers to use the E-Verify database to ensure they can legally employ their workers.
Now, Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who, like Cotton, is a potential 2024 GOP presidential candidate, has suggested raising the wage to $15 over five years, but only for businesses with revenues in excess of $1 billion. He has drafted legislation as well that would give a tax credit to those who make less than the median hourly wage of $16.15 an hour.
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Republican pollster Whit Ayres agreed that even if the minimum wage raise wasn’t included in the COVID-19 spending package, it was unlikely that it was “dead.”
“A stand-alone, gradual minimum wage bill will be very popular,” he said, “and could get a number of Republican votes.”
