Democrats, especially progressive Democrats, suffered a major setback on Thursday in their bid to include a provision that would gradually increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour in the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package, after the Senate parliamentarian, who acts as the rule enforcer, said that it could not be included in the bill, since the bill is to be passed via the budget reconciliation measure.
The $15 an hour minimum wage had been a major sticking point in the stimulus bill proposed by President Biden, titled the American Rescue Plan by the White House. Progressives, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had long championed for the federal minimum wage to be increased from the current $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour gradually through 2025.
The Senate parliamentarian, a little-known but extremely powerful officer in the Senate, is currently filled by Elizabeth MacDonough, who is the first female to fill this role since it was created in the 1930s and commends respect from both sides of the aisle.
The ruling from the parliamentarian highlighted the difficulties for Democrats of operating under such slim majorities in both houses of Congress, despite having a trifecta in the government. There are considerable difficulties in the process making it difficult for Democrats and Biden to pass ambitious agenda. This decision removed a key progressive-championed part of the stimulus bill and underscores the difficulties in using budget reconciliation, a parliamentary maneuver, in passing legislation.
Budget reconciliation is a process of passing certain pieces of legislation pertaining to the government budget, which allows it to fast-track through the Senate and allows it to avoid the partisan filibuster, which effectively requires most legislation to have 60 votes before being able to pass the Senate. In the current 50-50 Senate, 10 crossover votes from Republicans would be required to pass the stimulus bill without using reconciliation. The reconciliation process is commonly used by both parties, and was how the Republicans were able to pass President Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, which provided almost $2 trillion in tax cuts to wealthy individuals, among others.
The Byrd Rule is the rule which limits what can be included in bills passed via reconciliation, and the Senate parliamentarian has the power to determine what can and cannot be included in bills passed via this fast-track method.
Although the House, controlled by Democrats with a slim four-seat majority, passed the stimulus bill with the minimum wage increase provision, that provision is all but certain to be taken out when the Senate passes their version of the bill. The Senate version will need to be resent back to the House to be passed again before it can be signed into law by Biden.
The ruling from MacDonough underscores the divide among Democrats into how to effectively use their majorities in government to pass ambitious agenda. Progressives have advocated for the elimination of the filibuster and other procedural hurdles to make it as easy as possible to pass liberal agenda, arguing that rule changes are necessary in order to pass crucial policy which have been stalled due to Republican opposition. Unfortunately, some moderate Democrats, like Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have fought back against such measures, arguing that bipartisanship is necessary in the Senate and would also stop Republicans from passing radical agenda of their own when they take back the majority.
However, since not all Democrats, like Manchin and Sinema, have been on board with increasing the minimum wage, now that the provision is unlikely to make it into the final version of the bill, the bill is expected to face little opposition, since a major hurdle has now been removed from the bill.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement that “President Biden is disappointed in this outcome,” although “he respects the parliamentarian’s decision and the Senate’s process” and “will work with leaders in Congress to determine the best path forward.”
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said he was “deeply disappointed in this decision” and that the “American people deserve [the minimum wage increase].” He said that he is “not going to give up the fight” to raise the wage.
Top Democrats, like Sanders, who is the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, have promised to keep fighting for the budget increase. Sanders, who had demanded for weeks that the provision be kept, has announced that he will try an alternative approach, which would remove tax deductions from companies not paying workers a $15 hourly wage. He blasted the “archaic and undemocratic rules of the Senate” for failing to “end starvation wages in this country and raise the income of 32 million struggling Americans.”
The parliamentarian’s decision is generally respected by the majority party, although it has the power to fire the parliamentarian. Republicans did so in 2001 when the party was dissatisfied with his rulings. Although Democrats could try to remove MacDonough, overrule her decision, or rewrite the provision in a way that could allow it to conform with the rules, White House chief of staff Ron Klain had signaled that Vice President Kamala Harris, who acts as the tiebreaker for the Democrats in an evenly divided Senate, would not back the decision to overrule MacDonough. It is also unlikely Manchin and Sinema, who have so far been opposed to minimum wage increases, would support doing so too.
Progressive Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., blasted the decision. She said that “we can’t allow a nonelected official or other procedural obstacles” to block legislation, and that the Senate must continue to push for the increase. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said that “an unelected parliamentarian does not get to deprive 32 million Americans of the raise they deserve” and that since this was “an advisory, not a ruling,” Harris “needs to disregard and rule a $15 minimum wage.” Unfortunately, overruling a parliamentarian or the presiding officer of the Senate requires 60 votes, so that is unlikely to go anywhere.
Even though the provision is now expected to be removed from the bill, progressive Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., have said that they would still support the relief bill if parliamentarians, not senators, removed the bill from the provision.
Some Republicans have supported legislation that would raise the minimum wage to $10 instead of $15, though, so it does not mean that any raises to the minimum wage are not going to happen. Currently, Seattle, which has a $15 citywide minimum wage, has not seen any substantial firings due to the increase, and the economy there has continued to grow, although research on the topic is still highly conflicted as to the scale in which jobs would be lost due to costs rising from the minimum wage increase. It is unlikely Democrats, especially progressive Democrats, will drop this battle without a fierce fight, and even if it doesn’t pass now, we can continue to expect to see Democrats push strongly for more increases to the minimum wage.
The issue is that America is a big country. The cost of living is very different location by location. For example. I am from Buffalo. You can buy a nice home for 200 000 USD. But in Manhattan. You can not. You would need to spend 1 million or more at least! 5 X! 15 USD per hour does not make sense everywhere. This is the challenge