First State Times

President Joe Biden is still committed to raising the minimum wage to $15 even after a Senate rules expert declared the provision ineligible for the current form of the latest COVID-19 relief package, his press secretary said.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Feb. 28 said,“he can’t do it on his own, but he is absolutely committed to raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour,” The Epoch Times reported. 

“He thinks it’s long overdue. He believes that men and women who are working hard, trying to make ends meet, should have — should not be living at the poverty level. And we’re going to spend the next few days and weeks looking for the best path forward, working with Democrats and Republicans, hopefully, to do exactly that.”

Democrats in Congress are pushing for the bill to be passed even without support from the Republicans by using budget reconciliation. 

Through budget reconciliation, a simple majority in the Senate is needed for the bill to be approved, unlike the normal 60-vote threshold. This means Democrats can pass the bill with their 50 seats and one more vote from the vice president.

The body’s chief parliamentarian however ruled this out saying the $15 minimum wage hike couldn’t be included in the bill because of rules governing the budget process. 

Senate Democrats have started looking into other avenues like setting a penalty for large corporations that don’t pay their workers a certain amount of money. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has already written a proposal that would penalize companies and offer incentives to smaller ones  to give raises to their employees. The proposal is yet to be reviewed.

“The president supports exactly what Sen. Sanders does, which is increasing the minimum wage for the American people, for workers who are just trying to make ends meet,” she said, The Epoch Times reported. “We’re going to have to spend the next several days or even weeks figuring out what the best path forward is, but he’s committed to doing that.”

The current federal minimum wage, which was raised in 2009, is $7.25 an hour. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has already shown his lack of support by proposing a $11 minimum. Two Republican senators proposed their own bill that would increase the minimum wage to $10 an hour by 2025. Another Republican senator is proposing only big companies pay their workers at least $15 an hour.

They have also argued that the hike should be dealt with separately, not as part of the package. 

“There’s $100 million for an underground transit system in the Silicon Valley. There’s a bridge in New York. There’s hundreds of millions of dollars for the arts and so on. There are things that have nothing to do with COVID that are unrelated. Minimum wage was one, of course,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said over the weekend, as reported by The Epoch Times. 

Democrats say it's related to helping people during the pandemic and so should be part of the package. 

“I basically support raising the minimum wage in the COVID bill because that is a huge part of economic recovery,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) said on ABC's "This Week," The Epoch Times reported. “The people who are suffering most from the minimum wage and what’s happening in the pandemic are the essential workers, many of them are women, and many of them are getting paid very low wages.”