Early Friday morning, the Senate voted along party lines — with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaker vote — to pass the Congressional budget resolution in preparation for President Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion American relief plan, but without the proposed minimum wage hike. During the budget hearing’s early morning “vote-a-rama,” the Senate unanimously voted in favor of the amendment put forth by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) that would "prohibit the increase of the federal minimum wage during a global pandemic,” according to Politico.
Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — a major proponent of the $15 federal minimum wage — reluctantly said he would support the amendment, though he added on the Senate floor that it was never his or his fellow Democrats’ intent to increase the minimum wage to $15 “immediately during the pandemic.”
The original proposal from President Joe Biden and Congressional Democrats was to raise the minimum wage gradually to $15 an hour over the course of the next nearly-five years, not to immediately raise the minimum wage while the country and business community is still recovering from the pandemic.
Read more about the Senate approving the budget resolution for Biden’s American Relief plan but without $15 per hour minimum wage hike on NRN here.
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