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With the vote still pending on Friday due to the deadlock on unemployment assistance, the measure to raise the minimum wage to $ 15 by 2025 had attracted just 42 supporters – and 58 opponents. It was not clear when the vote-a-rama would resume, as text was not yet available for the new plan.
“If anyone thinks we are giving up on this issue, they are sorely mistaken,” Sanders told reporters. “If we have to vote repeatedly, we will – and we will be successful.”
While Republicans had made it clear that they were ready to start the stimulus package debate with all kinds of doomed amendments, it was also clear on Friday that there were much bigger issues than a united minority in the opposition. Lawmakers from both parties quickly focused on Mr Manchin, who repeatedly called for the entire bill to be more focused and who cited the unemployment provision as an example.
With existing payments of $ 300 per week set to expire next weekend, Mr Biden’s stimulus package and the House bill that passed last weekend to implement it have proposed to increase aid to $ 400 per week and extend it until the end of August.
But Mr Manchin and other moderates feared it was too high, and the Main Democrats had devised an alternative that would keep the weekly benefit at $ 300 but extend it until early October. They also added a sweetener: a new provision that would forgive up to $ 10,200 in taxes on unemployment benefits received in 2020.
Believing they had struck a deal, Democrats prepared to vote on the proposal, but Manchin hesitated. And after hours of negotiation, they announced a new plan. The weekly benefit would remain at $ 300, but the new end date would be September 6, which would only last a week longer than Mr Biden had proposed. The tax sweetener would only be available to those earning less than $ 150,000.
The whole exercise was aimed at persuading Mr Manchin not to approve an alternative amendment by Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman that would keep jobless payments at $ 300 and reduce the length of the program, setting a date end until July 18. If passed, the proposal would likely undermine Democratic support for the stimulus package.
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