President Joe Biden delivers a speech on foreign policy during a visit to the State Department in Washington on February 4, 2021.
Tom Brenner | Reuters
President Joe Biden said at the weekend that a $ 15 federal minimum wage provision is unlikely to make it into the next Covid-19 relief package, which will disrupt an important pledge during the campaign while Democrats in the Congress continues to provide $ 1.9 billion in stimulus without Republican support.
Biden said his administration is campaigning for a stand-alone bill to raise the minimum wage.
“I put it in, but I don’t think it’s going to survive,” Biden Norah O’Donnell told CBS in an interview that would be broadcast in full on Sunday. ‘I think it will not be inside [the stimulus bill]. “
Democrats in Congress have passed the $ 1.9 billion stimulus package without Republican support in the Senate using a parliamentary procedure known as reconciliation. House President Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said Friday that the lower chamber intends to pass the fiscal relief package within two weeks.
The budget resolution calls on the committees to write legislation that reflects Biden’s assistance package for Covid, while remaining below the $ 1.9 billion target. Democrats plan to provide $ 1400 in direct payments, a $ 400-a-week unemployment benefit through September, $ 350 billion in state, local and tribal government relief, a $ 20 billion national Covid vaccination program and $ 50 billion for virus testing.
The bill is also likely to include $ 170 billion for K-12 schools and higher education institutions and $ 30 billion for rent and assistance.
Republicans are opposed to including a wage increase in the Covid-19 emergency relief package and warn that it could put extra pressure on businesses already facing the economic consequences of the pandemic. And West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin is also against the pay rise, meaning Democrats will not have the votes to accept it, even with a simple majority under conciliation.
While Biden said the $ 15-hour wage provision was unlikely to be included in the Covid relief bill, he promised to prioritize the share of the wage increase in separate legislation.
“I, as the President of the United States, am prepared to conduct a separate minimum wage negotiation to work up to what it is now,” Biden said. “No one has to work 40 hours a week and live before the poverty wage and you earn less than $ 15 an hour, you live below the poverty wage.”
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