With millions around the country calling for a $15 minimum wage, small business owners fear their businesses will be crippled while minimum wage workers have hope for better days ahead. <\/p>\n
Democrats are looking for ways to include a $15 minimum wage hike in their $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package after the Senate Parliamentarian said it does not fit the rules to be passed via the budget reconciliation process on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said in a statement that he planned to look into an amendment that would take tax deductions away from big businesses that don’t pay workers at least $15 per hour.<\/p>\n
“In the coming days, I will be working with my colleagues in the Senate to move forward with an amendment to take tax deductions away from large, profitable corporations that don’t pay workers at least $15 an hour and to provide small businesses with the incentives they need to raise wages,”’ Sanders said in a statement. “That amendment must be included in this reconciliation bill.” <\/p>\n
Reconciliation allows a bill to be passed with a simple majority instead of 60 votes needed to end a filibuster, which is not allowed under the rules.<\/p>\n
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who has floated a $23 minimum wage, called on Vice President Kamala Harris to “disregard and rule a $15 minimum wage in order.”<\/p>\n
Typically, budget reconciliation measures must affect spending or revenue, like tax measures. Sanders' maneuver seems designed to get a minimum wage provision into the bill by adding a tax element.<\/p>\n
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., issued a statement on Thursday saying that the minimum wage measure would remain in the bill on the House floor Friday because Democrats believe the increase is “necessary.”<\/p>\n
DEMOCRATS' $15 MINIMUM WAGE HIKE CANNOT BE INCLUDED IN $1.9T RELIEF BILL, SENATE PARLIAMENTARIAN RULES<\/strong><\/p>\n Earlier in the day, Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told reporters that critics were “lucky that progressives aren’t asking for $24 right now, or $25 right now.” She also suggested she would be more willing to accept a bill without the minimum wage hike if it was ruled “out of bounds” by the parliamentarian and not stripped from the legislation prematurely by members of the party.<\/p>\n She also alluded to divisions within the Democratic Party between the more conservative and progressive sects, saying “conservative Democrats have a little sway over that slim margin in the Senate.”<\/p>\n “There will continue to be, I think, a push, pull over the next two years, but we can't just roll over and allow, you know, a tiny group, maybe two members of the Senate on the Democratic side, two conservative senators, to drop all democratic policy including Biden's policy,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters.<\/p>\n