Despite a Senate parliamentarian ruling, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is pressing forward with the minimum wage hike provision in the COVID-19 relief package.
“The ruling from the Senate parliamentarian is disappointing,” Pelosi said in a statment on Thursday night.
She added that raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour would “give 27 million Americans a well-deserved raise and pull nearly one million Americans out of poverty in the middle of a once-in-a-century devastating pandemic and economic crisis.”
The Senate parliamentarian ruled on Thursday that the minimum wage hike could not be included in the relief package, saying it did not meet guidelines under the Senate’s “reconciliation” rules.
However, Pelosi is keeping the provision in the bill.
“House Democrats believe that the minimum wage hike is necessary. Therefore, this provision will remain in the American Rescue Plan on the Floor tomorrow. Democrats in the House are determined to pursue every possible path in the Fight For 15.”
“Tomorrow, when we pass the American Rescue Plan, the American people will know that Help Is On The Way,” she concluded her statement.
The House of Representatives is expected to vote on President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid bill on Friday.
As CNN reports, “That means that the House will pass its bill, the Senate will have to strip the minimum wage provision out, and then eventually the House will have to pass that bill again at the end of the process.”
The White House responded to Thursday’s ruling by the Senate parliamentarian, saying Biden is “disappointed” by it but “he respects the parliamentarian’s decision and the Senate’s process.”
“He will work with leaders in Congress to determine the best path forward because no one in this country should work full time and live in poverty,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.
She continued, “He urges Congress to move quickly to pass the American Rescue Plan, which includes $1400 rescue checks for most Americans, funding to get this virus under control, aid to get our schools reopened and desperately needed help for the people who have been hardest hit by this crisis.”
