Pelosi says a $15 minimum wage increase will be included in the House's pandemic relief package

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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said a $15 minimum wage increase will be included in the House's stimulus package.

Democratic lawmakers are working with the parliamentarian to ensure the minimum wage increase complies with the Byrd rule.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont disagreed with the CBO's findings earlier this week that a minimum wage increase will add to the federal budget deficit.

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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said during a press conference on Thursday that a federal $15 minimum wage increase will be included in the stimulus package that will go to the Senate.

"Yes it will," Pelosi said in response to whether the provision would be included. "And we're very proud of that."

Increasing the minimum wage is one of the most contentious measures in President Joe Biden's stimulus plan and has sparked debates among economists and lawmakers over the impact on the economy and jobs.

On Wednesday, the House Committee on Education and Labor approved the $15 minimum wage increase within its stimulus bill that would phase in gradually until 2025, a measure originally proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and other Democratic lawmakers in the Raise the Wage Act of 2021.

"It is a moral imperative in the richest country in the world that no one is forced to live on a starvation wage, and the American Rescue Plan will get it done," Sanders said on Twitter.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Thursday that he is "working hard" with Sanders to get the minimum wage increased passed. This includes having conversations with the parliamentarian to ensure the provision complies with the Byrd rule, which bars measures that increase long-term debt in a budget reconciliation bill.

In a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office, it found that increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour over the course of four years will add $54 billion to the federal budget deficit. However, in response to the report's conclusions, Sanders cited other major studies that found that raising the wage would reduce budget deficit, and he said that the CBO actually supports budget reconciliation efforts.

"The good news, however, is that from a Byrd Rule perspective, the CBO has demonstrated that increasing the minimum wage would have a direct and substantial impact on the federal budget," Sanders said in a statement. "What that means is that we can clearly raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour under the rules of reconciliation."

Pelosi is pushing to get the pandemic relief package passed by the end of February so Biden can sign it before March 14, when unemployment benefits are set to expire.

Bystander-Effect on February 12nd, 2021 at 03:52 UTC »

My coworker told me today that if minimum wage goes to 15 dollars an hour I won’t be able to buy a gallon of milk.

Not that the price will go up, but that milk will be unavailable, because “them migrant workers are gonna ask for too much money”

South Dakota is the Wild West right now.

its_harold on February 11st, 2021 at 23:38 UTC »

Now tie it, and government employee salaries, to inflation.

radiofever on February 11st, 2021 at 23:20 UTC »

Wow. I'm genuinely surprised.

The first job I had paid $1.35 less than the minimum wage in 1985. It was $3.35, I got 2 an hour. Because my parents weren't required to pay it and because they thought a ten year old should make less than adults. (Republicans)

It's 2021 and it's a joke where it sits today, $7.25. Long overdue and probably not enough to go to 15.

Edit: I mentioned this post to my mom. She says, my first job paid $1.25 per hour at 16. Weebolts, Oak Park (Chicago) so 1965. It sucked. I made 75 cents more than my mom did at her first job, twenty years after her. And a that's a whole two dollars and ten fucking pence for y'all.