- Sanders expressed confidence that the minimum wage increase will remain in the COVID-19 aid package.
- The Senate parliamentarian will determine whether the salary increase can be approved by reconciliation.
- Sanders still faces resistance from Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
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Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on Saturday expressed confidence that the proposed minimum wage increase to $ 15 an hour will remain in the $ 1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that Congressional Democrats intend to approve in the process. budget reconciliation.
President Joe Biden supports the increase in the minimum wage, but expressed doubts that this would be allowed by the reconciliation rules. But Sanders, the independent chairman of the Senate Budget Committee who joins the Democrats, thinks the move will be approved by the Senate MP.
“Raising the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour is not ‘incidental’ to the federal budget and is permitted by the rules of reconciliation,” Sanders said in a statement to CNN. “The CBO [Congressional Budget Office] found that the $ 15 minimum wage has a much greater impact on the federal budget than opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to prospect for oil and revoking individual mandate penalties – two provisions that the parliamentarian advised did not violate the Byrd’s rule when Republicans controlled the Senate. “
He added: “I am confident that the congressman will advise next week that we can raise the minimum wage through the reconciliation process.”
The CBO decided that the 2021 Wage Increase Act would have a substantial impact on the budget, which could reach the limit of Byrd’s Rule and go through the reconciliation process.
Sanders insisted that reconciliation – which would have the support of all 50 Democratic senators for legislation – is the way to make the minimum wage increase happen.
“It will be a reconciliation if I have something to say about it – it is the only way to get it approved”, he said Joseph Zeballos-Roig from Insider earlier this month.
But even if the congressman decides in favor of Sanders, he will still face resistance from moderate Democrats Sens. Joe Manchin, from West Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema, from Arizona.
Manchin told The Hill earlier this month that he could support raising the minimum wage to $ 11 an hour, which he said was “responsible and reasonable”.
“The provision of the minimum wage is not appropriate for the reconciliation process,” Sinema told Politico last week. “It’s not a budget item. And it shouldn’t be there.”
The federal minimum wage of $ 7.25 an hour has been unchanged since July 2009.