Bernie Sanders’ Push for a Living Wage

One of President Biden’s top campaign promises, raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025, suffered a setback earlier this month when the Senate emphatically rejected it.

Eight Democrats: Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Jon Tester (D-MT), Tom Carper (D-DE), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Angus King (I-ME), joined all 49 Republicans in voting against an amendment introduced by Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to include the minimum wage increase in the now-passed COVID-19 relief package. Sanders, who chairs the powerful Senate Budget Committee, has publicly supported a $15 minimum wage since his first presidential run in 2016. 

Supporters of the increase aimed to include it in the relief bill because it would only need support from 50 senators (as opposed to the usual 60). However, their plans took a hit on February 25th when Independent Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that their proposal was ineligible under senate law. 

In the aftermath of MacDonough’s decision, the White House seemed to retract its support for the proposal to be included in the bill. On the other hand, Senator Sanders called on his colleagues to disregard the ruling of the Parliamentarian, which is merely advisory, and announced his intention to bring the amendment to a floor vote.

In a statement, he said that “in my view, an unelected staffer in the Senate should not be in charge of determining whether 32 million workers in America receive a raise.”

 The current federal minimum wage is only $7.25, a number that has not changed since 2009. A recent poll showed that over 53% of Americans support raising the minimum wage to $15.

The proposal was not expected to pass, as many of the aforementioned senators had expressed opposition to raising the minimum wage prior to the vote. Nevertheless, Sanders voiced optimism that he will eventually be triumphant: “If we have to vote on it time and time again, we will. And we’re going to succeed.”