The Covid Relief Bill Heads to the Senate…Without That Minimum Wage Increase
Politics

The House of Representatives passed the Biden administration’s coronavirus relief bill on Saturday, providing one (1) metric hopeunit to those of us still capable of faking optimism. Per the Associated Press, the $1.9 trillion bill includes: payments of $1,400 to individuals, an extension on emergency unemployment benefits through August, and billions of dollars for a bunch of things like schools, governments, covid-19 vaccines and testing, renters, and industries hit especially hard by the pandemic’s economic fallout.
One key provision the House approved that will not make it to the Senate is the one that would’ve raised the federal minimum wage up from the appalling $7.25 floor it’s been stuck at since 2009 to a moderately less appalling $15 an hour. That’s because the Senate Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, ordered that the chamber drop the measure on Thursday, The New York Times reports.