- The Senate unanimously voted to ban raising the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour during the pandemic, which neither side has ever supported.
- The amendment was proposed by Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa.
- The effort came when the Democrats tried to pass on a $ 1.9 trillion stimulus package.
- Visit Insider’s Business section for more stories.
The Senate unanimously passed a Republican amendment Thursday that tries to stop Democrats from doing something they never wanted to do: double the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour during the pandemic.
In fact, Democrats, as well as Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, joined the Republicans to bring the fact home.
Rather than doubling the federal minimum wage before the pandemic ends, President Joe Biden and Congressional Democrats are proposing to gradually increase it to $ 15 an hour by 2025 as part of their $ 1.9 trillion stimulus package.
The amendment by Senator Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican, appeared to be an attempt to mislead the position of the Democrats – to introduce a $ 15 minimum wage “during a global pandemic” – and to get centrist Democrats on the ground. to emphasize divisions within the party. the pay increase plan.
Specifically, the amendment would give the chair of the Senate Budgets Committee the right to ignore a pay increase as part of the reconciliation process – a parliamentary maneuver that allows the democratically controlled senate to pass legislation in the upper chamber with a simple majority in instead of the 60 votes usually required.
Sanders, an independent Vermont member and chair of the Senate Committee on Budgets, said during the debate on the grounds that he would “do everything I can to make sure a $ 15 minimum wage is included in this reconciliation bill.” He rejected the Republican position that Democrats are trying to double wages before the pandemic is over.
“It was never my intention to immediately raise the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour during the pandemic,” said Sanders. “My legislation is gradually increasing the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour over a 5-year period, which is what I think we should be doing.”
Sanders brought the amendment to an unrecorded ballot vote in a move that likely averted criticism of his push to raise the minimum wage.
“We need to end the starvation wage crisis in Iowa and the United States,” he added.
A senior Democratic aide, who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak in public, argued that the Republicans had messed up the attempt to force moderate Democrats to hold a politically difficult vote.
“This isn’t Bernie’s first rodeo,” the assistant said. “No one has to vote hard on an amendment to messaging and we can still try to pass the minimum wage through the reconciliation law.”
It remains unclear whether Democrats will succeed in approving the minimum wage increase through strict budgetary rules for the reconciliation process.
The federal minimum wage of $ 7.25 an hour was last increased in 2009.
Earlier this month, Ernst spoke out against including a pay rise as part of a stimulus package, saying: “liberal prioritieswould hurt small businesses.
Ben Zipperer, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, told Insider that such an impact would be minimal at worst and demonstrably beneficial to both businesses and workers, with higher wages reducing costly employee turnover.
Despite Republican opposition, however, raising the minimum wage is popular among voters. According to a recent Quinnipiac University poll, 61% of Americans support Democrats’ efforts to raise it to $ 15 an hour.
Twenty states have already raised their own minimum wages since the beginning of 2021.
Do you have a news tip? Email this reporter: [email protected]