Sen. Bernie Sanders said he’s fighting to include a federal $15 minimum wage provision in the coronavirus relief bill, despite President Biden doubting that it will make its way into the legislation.
“Well, I hope he is [wrong],” Sanders, who helms the Senate Budget Committee, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday after being reminded of Biden’s reservations on the wage hike. “The president supports the $15 an hour minimum wage. I do. Last poll I saw has 62% of the American people supporting it. Because at the end of the day, we are in the midst of massive income and wealth inequality. People on top are doing phenomenally well, yet we have literally tens of millions of Americans working for starvation wages. You cannot make it in any state in this country on nine or 10 bucks an hour, you gotta raise that minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour.”
“As chairman of the Budget Committee, we have a room full of lawyers working as hard as we can to make the case to the parliamentarian, that in fact, raising the minimum wage will have significant budget implications,” the Vermont independent added.
Biden indicated on Saturday that the $1.9 trillion relief package, which includes $1,400 stimulus checks, jobless benefits, and state aid, is likely to not include a $15 minimum wage provision. Democrats have chosen to move the legislation forward without Republican support using reconciliation, a process that requires only a simple majority to pass budget-related legislation.
“I put it in, but I don’t think it’s going to survive,” Biden told CBS News’s Norah O’Donnell in an interview scheduled to air in full on Sunday. “My guess is it will not be in [the stimulus bill].”
“I’m prepared as the president of the United States on a separate negotiation on minimum wage to work my way up from what it is now,” he continued. “No one should work 40 hours a week and live before the poverty wage, and you’re making less than $15 an hour, you’re living below the poverty wage.”
Sanders, who said the minimum wage hike is “not radical”, added that the stimulus checks will not apply to single individuals making more than $75,000 a year and couples raking in over $150,000 a year in an effort to avoid giving benefits to “rich people.”
“When people said ‘we don’t want rich people to get that benefit’, I understand that, I agree,” he told Tapper. “And what we need to do is have a strong cliff, so it doesn’t spill over to people making $300,000.”
The coronavirus relief bill also includes $350 in aid for states and localities, $20 billion to advance vaccinations, $50 billion for testing, $170 billion for schools, and $30 billion for rent assistance. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Friday that she hopes the relief package will pass the House and move to the Senate within two weeks.
