Democrats on the Hill brought their full attention back to President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill this week, following the close of their unsuccessful second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. The bill, which was originally touted as a bipartisan stimulus package, will likely pass along party lines in the House next week before coming to the Senate for a vote.
When Biden entered office in late January, he was adamant that his first priority, the sweeping American Rescue Plan, would pass with bipartisan support. Now, it appears that the bill will not only pass without the support of Republicans, despite containing massive concessions to conservatives, but will leave the progressive wing of his own party feeling jilted.
One of those concessions? A proposed federal minimum wage hike from $7.25 to $15, the first since 2009.
“I don’t think it’s going to survive,” Biden recently told CBS News of the potential increase. That’s largely because two moderate Democratic senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have said that they don’t support the measure. In order for COVID relief to pass without the support of Republicans in a split Senate, the bill will need the backing of all 50 Democrats and a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Kamala Harris.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, however, has vowed that the $15 increase will be in the final version of the relief bill. “It’s going to be in reconciliation if I have anything to say about it. The only way we’re going to get it passed—we’re not going to get the 60 votes that we need. The only way we’re going to do it with 50 votes is through reconciliation,” he said.
Sanders has said that he would use his role as chairman of the budget panel to attempt to sway reluctant Democratic senators. “The Senate must raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour with 51 votes this year. We have got to end the crisis of starvation wages in America,” he tweeted.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, meanwhile, tweeted that the minimum wage must be raised to “right this wrong.”
There are some indicators that Manchin could be swayed; the senator reportedly requested a meeting with the Poor People’s Campaign, an advocacy group for an increased minimum wage, on Monday after they planned protests outside his office.
Gradually raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would increase pay for more than 40 million American workers.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, meanwhile, said she hadn’t decided whether to support a bill that comes back to the House without a minimum wage hike. “I hope that we’re going to get a bill back with $15 in it. And I think if we don’t, then, you know, we’re just going to have to make our decisions at that point,” she said. “But I can tell you, it is a top priority for the CPC, and, you know, bowing to one or two conservative Democrats seems like a terrible policy idea and a political idea.”