House Democrats are taking a federal minimum wage of $ 15 into their coronavirus aid package, but there are still questions about whether the increase can survive Senate consideration. The provision, written in the Home Education and Labor Committees’ section of the bill, will gradually increase wages from its current rate of $ 7.25 per hour to $ 15 in 2025.
This comes after the Congressional Budget Office released a report the same day estimating that raising the minimum wage to $ 15 per hour over five years would lift 900,000 Americans out of poverty. The CBO has found that approximately 17 million people currently earning below the minimum wage will be directly affected, while another ten million people whose wages are slightly above the minimum rate will also be affected.
At the same time, the CBO projected that raising the minimum wage to $ 15 per hour would lead to 1.4 million fewer jobs. It is also estimated that the salary increase would increase the federal deficit by $ 54 billion over ten years, with higher spending on health care programs, unemployment, social security and more, while spending on programs such as food aid would decline because more low-income families would need no longer relying on them.
“The CBO report strengthens the case for the gradual increase of the minimum wage through the COVID-19 rescue package,” Bobby Scott, chair of the Home Education and Labor Committee, said in a statement before joining his committee of the COVID Legal Aid Bill. “This non-partisan report shows that raising the minimum wage will be a direct and targeted stimulus for struggling workers and their families.”
Meanwhile, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders argued that the only way to pass the $ 15 minimum wage in the Senate would be through budget reconciliation, a process that can be used when legislation has a direct impact on the federal budget has. If that were the case, Senate Democrats would only need 51 votes to pass, rather than convince 10 Republican senators to join them.
“I find it hard to understand how the CBO concludes that raising the minimum wage will increase the deficit by $ 54 billion,” Sanders said in a statement on Monday. “Two years ago, the CBO concluded that a minimum wage of $ 15 would increase the deficit over ten years by less than $ 1 million.”
At the same time, however, Sanders said the ‘good news’ was that the CBO report showed that the minimum wage increase of $ 15 would affect the budget and could therefore be done through reconciliation.
Amid debates over whether Democrats can use budget reconciliation to raise the minimum wage, it is not clear that Senate Democrats will have support from the full caucus. With a 50-50 split in the Senate, Democrats would not be able to lose a single vote, and Vice President Kamala Harris would likely have to vote to break the bond. Senator Joe Manchin said Monday he supports raising the minimum wage to $ 11 an hour.
“The states that are going to earn $ 15, the states that are supposed to do $ 15 are already doing it. And more states will do $ 15, but the minimum wage should not fall under the poverty guidelines,” Manchin said.
President Biden, on the inclusion of the $ 15 minimum wage in the coronavirus relief bill, said he had “inserted it, but I do not think it will survive.” He told O’Donnell that he would continue to fight for it in a stand-alone bill. Republicans do not favor the inclusion of the $ 15 minimum wage in the COVID-19 relief bill.
On Monday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Mr. Biden referred to the Senate parliamentary process during his CBS News interview when he expressed doubts that it would remain in the Senate version of the bill.
“It is still working through the process in Congress, and the parliamentarian still has to decide what will be in the final package,” Psaki said, stressing that the president still believes he will raise the minimum wage.
Psaki said they would wait to see what the parliamentarian says about the $ 15 wage increase by reconciling the budget.
As for the CBO report, Republicans took advantage of the estimated job losses and the increase in costs.
“Non-partisan CBO says $ 15 minimum wage will cost 1.4 million jobs, far more than that will increase benefits + costs in stores / healthcare and increase deficit by $ 54 billion,” tweeted Iuck Senator Chuck Grassley. “The inclusion of this harmful policy in the COVID relief bill will destroy the same biz / ppl that have already been hit by pandemics.”
Alan He reported.