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Protester attends rally by fast food workers and supporters to celebrate California labor commissioner’s order to company to rehire and compensate workers who have gone on strike for disease protection virus (COVID-19), in Los Angeles, California on February 18, 2021.
Lucy Nicholson | Reuters
Democrats cannot include a minimum wage of $ 15 an hour in their $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, a Senate official said on Thursday, derailing a party priority for now and an increase for millions of Americans.
Senate MP Elizabeth MacDonough has determined that lawmakers cannot include politics as part of the budget reconciliation, CNBC confirmed. She and her staff have heard arguments from Democrats and Republicans on whether the proposal meets strict standards for the deficit effects needed to include it in the process.
Reconciliation allows the Senate to pass bills by simple majority – in this case, without Republicans wary of another massive bailout. However, Democrats faced challenges pushing through the pay hike, whether or not house rules allow it in legislation.
House Democrats have included the minimum wage of $ 15 an hour in the bailout bill they plan to approve on Friday. This would bring the federal wage floor to the threshold by 2025, then index future increases to inflation.
It is now unclear whether the House leaders will change their plan before passing it and sending it to the Senate.
Democrats see raising the minimum wage – stuck at $ 7.25 an hour since 2009 – a priority as they control both houses of Congress and the White House. But as Republicans wonder if a $ 15 pay floor will hamper small businesses in parts of the country, politics won’t garner 60 votes in a 50-50-per-party split Senate.
Republican Sens. Mitt Romney and Tom Cotton offered a version GOP response to the minimum wage push, proposing a plan that would raise the wage floor to $ 10 an hour and put restrictions on hiring undocumented immigrants. Arkansas, the state Cotton represents, has a minimum wage of $ 11.
Democratic leaders will reject the framework proposed by Romney and Cotton.
Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have both opposed a minimum wage of $ 15 an hour. Manchin said he backed $ 11 an hour instead.
Raising the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour by 2025 would lift 900,000 people out of poverty, but cost 1.4 million jobs, the Congressional Budget Office estimated earlier this month.
– CNBC’s Ylan Mui contributed to this report
This story is developing. Please come back for updates.
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