Working behind the scenes to advance his No. 1 political agenda, 79-year-old Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) tests his clout with the Biden administration pushing for a $15 an hour minimum wage. When you consider the federal minimum is $7.50 since 2009, passing a $15 minimum would have profound impact on ordinary wage earners, prompting Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Ut.) to introduce their own legislation that exempts illegal aliens from the federal minimum wage standard. Cotton and Romney know that many undocumented workers in the U.S. work in some of the biggest industries in hospitality, restaurants, transportation, and, of course, construction trades where large homebuilders typically make use of illegal aliens, primarily because union trades are far to costly for large-scale commercial and residential real estate projects.
Some Senators like Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Krysten Sinema (R-Az.) remain strongly opposed to bumping up the federal minimum because many small businesses would either be put out of business or forced to lay off workers. Some Democrats have already blamed 78-year-old President Joe Biden for not insisting that the $15 minimun hike would be part of his $1.9 trillion Covid-relief bill, designed to provide emergency financial relief of millions of unemployed citizens. “I don’t thin it’s going to survive,” Biden told CBS New, referring to the $15 minimum wage hike. Whatever the objections, Biden doesn’t need more that 50+1 votes, to pass the $15 minumum under “budget reconciliation,” something that permits a simple majority plus one vote, in this case Vice President Kamala Harris. Bernie is pushing hard for the $15 minimum wage behind the scenes, a major part of his 2020 presidential campaign.
Bernie, who’s chair of the Senate Budget Committee, wants to include the $15 minimum wage hike in the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package. Former presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) agreed that Biden should include the $15 minimum wage in the Covid relief bill. Rev. William Barber II, co-chair of the Poor Peoples Campaign, said Biden has a mandate to insert the $15 minimum in the Covid relief legislation. “We cannot be the last to get relief and the last to get treated and paid properly,” Barber said, saying it’s a moral imperative to give workers a livable minimum wage. Economic Policy Institute cite data showing at 19% of Hispanics and 13% of blacks early hourly rates the put them below the federal poverty level. Covid-19 has accelerated the poverty rates to alarming levels, driving more low wage earners into unemployment and homelessness.
People of color constituted 38% of Biden’s constituency in the Nov. 8, 2020 presidential election, making the mandate to increase the minimum wage all the more pressing. BlackPAC executive director Adrianne Shropshire said increasing the minimum wage to $15 assures that persons of color “come out of the pandemic in better shape that the went into it.” Whatever the obstacles in Congress, Biden should throw his weight behind increasing the federal minimum wage, even if the rollout takes a few years. “The recovery around COVID shouldn’t just be about how to sabilize and get people back to zero,” Shropshire said. “It should be about how we create opportunities to move people beyond where they were.” Congressional Budget Office warned that increasing the minimum wage to $15 might lift millions out of poverty but could increase the federal budget defict and cost some 1.4 million jobs.
Arguments against raising the federal minimum wage relate to increasing unemployment, when small businesses, the backbone to the U.S. economy, can’t afford to pay full or part-time workers. If raising the minimum increases unemployment then it makes you wonder about the CBO’s projection of lifting people out of poverty. Union activist Terrence Wise, who backed Biden’s election, wants the president to commit to increasing the federal minimum to $15. “To have it this close on the doorstep, they need to get it done,” said Wise, a 41-year-old McDonald’s department manager in Kansas City. He’s been leading the Fight for 15, an organized labor movement backed by Bernie. Wise wants Biden to either include the $15 minimum in the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 legislation or put it in a separate bill. Whatever the opposition, Democrats can us “budget reconciliation” to get it passed.
Biden has a winning argument with the vast majority of American hourly workers moving toward a $15 minimum wage. While increasing hourly wages could dig into profit margins for small, medium and large businesses, it’s the right thing to do to help lift workers out of poverty. Exceptions can be made on the size of U.S. businesses, granting exceptions to small businesses that can’t afford the $15 minimum. When it comes to certain regions of the country, the cost of living should be taken into consideration, especially in high cost urban areas. Cotton and Romney’s exceptions for undocumented workers would be problematic for large agricultural businesses, requiring foreign labor to complete work requirement. Most foreign laborers use fake Social Security numbers to qualify for employment, providing the government with lucrative tax benefits to Social Security and Medicare. Higher wages actually favor government tax receipts for entitlement programs.
