Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) lent his support to a Republican budget amendment to prevent Congress from raising the minimum wage to $15 on Friday, claiming that he never actually supported raising the minimum wage “immediately and during the pandemic.” Sanders described the popular belief that he supported a minimum wage hike in the Covid stimulus package was the result of a “misunderstanding.”
The measure, which passed unanimously via voice vote, dealt a fatal blow to the hopes of progressive activists who pushed for the inclusion of $15 wage legislation within the congressional $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill.
“I will do everything that I can to make sure a $15-an-hour minimum wage is included in this reconciliation bill, but there appears to be some misunderstanding,” Sanders stated.
The Vermont senator added, “It was never my intention to raise the minimum wage immediately and during the pandemic.”
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Joe Biden raised leftist hopes for a nationwide $15 minimum wage in January, but the executive order he ended up signing only increased the wage for government employees.
In his flurry of executive orders, Joe Biden raised the federal workers’ minimum wage to $15 per hour. Biden, apparently seeking to make good on the Democrat wish to see the federal minimum wage raised, may have caused confusion, as instead of raising the federal minimum wage through Congress, Biden simply raised the minimum wage for federal workers, in a tricky series of linguistics.
The Epoch Times reports that Biden signed the executive order on Friday, January 22. The order demands federal employees – like post office employees – be paid $15 per hour, and gives them emergency paid leave.
The order also is not unilateral. It simply “instructs the Office of Personnel Management to develop recommendations to agencies that would ensure as many employees as possible get a $15 per hour minimum wage.”
Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, has shown little signs of breaking away from the party line when it comes to supporting Biden administration policy proposals.