The House surpassed President Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus early morning relief package on Saturday morning almost entirely following partisan lines. The bill is now in the Senate, although it included a raise in the minimum wage the Senate MP passed on Thursday cannot be included if Congress uses the budget conciliation process.
Two Democrats, Kurt Schrader of Oregon and Jared Golden of Maine, voted with Republicans in a 219-212 vote. Not a single Republican voted in favor of the bill.
The debate on the bill lasted until almost 1 a.m. Saturday.
The bill, called the American Rescue Plan, includes $ 1,400 in direct checks for Americans earning less than $ 75,000, an additional unemployment bonus of $ 400 a week, money for vaccine distribution and funding for helping schools and state and local governments.
Although previous coronavirus relief laws have been passed with the support of bipartisanship, the bill was expected to pass in the House following party lines, as Republicans have criticized the high price. and the inclusion of provisions they consider unrelated to the crisis.
The vote in the House came days after the United States passed the dark milestone of 500,000 American deaths of the coronavirus. Millions of people have lost their jobs due to the economic consequences, and the supplementary unemployment benefit set by Congress late last year will have to expire in mid-March.
The American bailout plan is widely popular among Americans and gets the support of Republican voters as well as Democrats and independents. A Morning Consult / Politico poll released Thursday shows that 76% of Americans support the package, including 60% of Republicans.
“The need is great. There is an opportunity,” president Nancy Pelosi told reporters Thursday.
The bill also includes a provision that raises the federal minimum wage to $ 15 per hour in 2025, although the He ruled the Senate parliamentarian that the bill could not include an increase in the federal minimum wage if Congress uses the budget conciliation process.
Congress Democrats chose to use the procedural maneuver known as budget reconciliation to pass the bill, allowing it to be passed only by a simple majority in the Senate. Most legislation requires 60 votes in the Senate to move forward, so the budget conciliation process allows Democrats – who have a 50-seat majority – to pass the bill without Republican votes.
There are strict rules for using the budget reconciliation process, such as the “Byrd rule,” which requires that all provisions of the bill be related to the budget and not have to increase the federal deficit after a budget period of ten years. MP Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that the rise in the minimum wage did not fit the parameters of budget reconciliation.
Pelosi said in a statement Thursday that MacDonough’s decision was “disappointing.”
“House Democrats believe the raising of the minimum wage is necessary. Therefore, that provision will remain in the U.S. rescue plan tomorrow,” Pelosi said. The $ 7.25 federal minimum wage has not increased since 2009.
However, it is unclear whether the provision raising the minimum wage would have been included in the final bill, even if MacDonough had decided that it was possible to include a pay rise in the bill. At least two Democrats, Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, had expressed concern over the minimum wage increase. Without the support of the 50 Senate Democrats, the prospects for the project would be doomed.
Once the Senate considers its version of the bill, progressives in the House could threaten to withhold support for the final package unless some sort of minimum wage hike is included. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suggested Thursday that progressive members of the House should press their own party in a manner similar to that of conservative Democrats in the Senate.
“There are progressive Democrats who have that muscle in the House,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “If we, as a party, decide to keep our promise to raise the minimum wage, I think it’s extraordinarily spurious and that, as a party, we could have an additional conversation about how to fight for it.”
The Speaker of the Progressive House Congress, Pramila Jayapal, told reporters on Friday that the Senate should consider eliminating the legislative filibuster, which would allow any legislation to be passed in the Senate by a simple majority. The use of budget conciliation is a solution that allows lawmakers to pass bills with a simple majority without torpedoing the filibuster.
“Senate rules have really been put there to preserve the power of the minority,” Jayapal said. “Now we have to show that it will make a difference that we will not be trapped by the tyranny of the minority that exists in the Senate.”
Jayapal and other progressives have pressured Vice President Kamala Harris to overturn the parliamentarian’s decision as president of the Senate.
A senior Democratic aide confirmed to CBS News that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wants to add a new provision to penalize large corporations that do not pay their workers a minimum wage of $ 15, an idea that seems to be gaining momentum .
Senator Bernie Sanders, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee and a staunch advocate of raising the minimum wage, said Thursday he would introduce an amendment to the package to “remove tax deductions from large, profitable companies that do not pay workers to at least $ 15 an hour and to provide small businesses with the incentives they need to raise wages. “
“This amendment should be included in this conciliation bill,” Sanders said.
Other senators seem open to punishing companies for not paying their workers enough wages. Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden on Friday suggested a “plan B” approach to the minimum wage, which “would impose a 5% penalty on the total payroll of large corporations if a worker earns less than one. certain amount “.
“At the same time, I want to encourage the small business – which has middle-class owners – to increase the wages of its workers. My plan would provide an income tax credit equal to 25 percent of wages, up to 10,000 dollars a year per employer, to small businesses that pay their workers higher wages, ”Wyden said.
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who joined Sanders to demand $ 2,000 direct checks late last year, also introduced a bill that would require companies with revenues of $ 1 billion or more to pay its employees $ 15 per hour.
The amendments only require a simple majority to be added to the legislation, so a change in the minimum wage is possible as long as the 50 Democrats approve it.
The minimum wage increase is very popular, with a 2019 survey by the Pew Research Center showing that 67% of Americans support raising the minimum wage to $ 15. It even has support in some red states, as evidenced by a voting initiative in Florida to increase the minimum wage increase to $ 15 in 2026 that happened with the support of more than 60% of voters in the last election.
Jack Turman contributed to this report