Democrats seek ways to boost minimum wage after a setback
“Schumer is looking at adding to Senate COVID bill a new provision to penalize large corporations that don’t pay their workers at least a $15 minimum wage,” a senior Democratic aide told CNN on Friday.
Senate Democrats are discussing their process for adding their alternative $15 minimum wage hike into the bill, according to two aides familiar with the talks, and are weighing offering it as an amendment during floor debate next week, something that would require 51 votes to approve.
The other option is to try to insert it into the underlying bill that they plan to bring to the floor, but that seems less likely at the moment.
Either way it still needs to pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian about whether it falls within the rules of the budget reconciliation process that they are employing to pass the bill with 51 votes.
One reason the Senate parliamentarian ruled the minimum wage increase was in violation of the rules was that it was a mandate on business, according to Senate sources. Democrats are now attempting to get around that concern by seeking to incentivize rather than mandate a wage hike.
The move from the majority leader comes after Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who causes with Democrats, floated the idea Thursday night.
“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 Thursday reacting to the parliamentarian’s decision. “That amendment must be included in this reconciliation bill.”
But Senate Democrats made clear Friday morning that they plan to pursue other ways to force an increase.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden said that he is working on a “plan B” as a possible alternative to incentivize companies to pay a higher minimum wage.
“I’ve been working on a ‘plan B’ that would make big companies pay for mistreating their workers. My plan would impose a 5 percent penalty on a big corporations’ total payroll if any workers earn less than a certain amount,” Wyden said in a statement, adding, “While conversations are continuing, I believe this ‘plan B’ provides us a path to move forward and get this done through the reconciliation process.”
Biden has been pushing for the wage hike and progressives have made clear it’s a major priority, but including a $15 dollar increase as part of the Covid package has faced resistance from moderate Senate Democrats, like Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
For that reason, while Democrats had pushed for the increase to be included — and Democratic leaders expressed its disappointment in the ruling by the parliamentarian Thursday evening — its removal could actually make it easier to pass the bill, senior Democratic sources believe, because it would avoid a messy fight over whether to strip it out of the bill and whether to compromise.
CNN’s Lauren Fox and Sam Fossum contributed to this report.
