US House on Cusp of Passing $1.9 Trillion COVID Plan but Wage Hike Falters

By Staff, Agencies

House Democrats were poised late Friday to pass US President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief package by a narrow margin despite a Senate ruling that the final version will not include a minimum wage hike.

Biden had campaigned extensively on raising the national minimum wage to $15 an hour, from a rate of $7.25 that has stood since 2009.

He aimed to include it in the huge COVID rescue plan which allots billions of dollars to boost vaccine delivery, help schools re-open and fund state and local governments.

The bill – on track to be the second-largest US stimulus ever after the $2 trillion package Donald Trump signed last March to fight the pandemic's devastating spread – also extends unemployment benefits, set to expire mid-March.

But the minimum wage portion of the latest effort ran aground when the Senate parliamentarian ruled Thursday that it cannot be included in the sprawling aid plan as written under certain rules.

Despite the setback House Democrats pressed on with a vote and expressed confidence it would pass, keeping the minimum wage provision in even as it will be dead on arrival in the upper chamber.

"We're going to make a giant step forward tonight," Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told reporters, saying the hundreds of billions of dollars in direct checks "is going to be a boon for families" suffering during the pandemic.

A House vote was expected just after midnight [0500 GMT], in the early hours Saturday.

Pelosi can ill afford defections. She leads the slimmest House majority – 221 Democrats to 211 Republicans – in decades in her chamber.

And she stressed that, should the Senate remove the provision as expected, Democrats will return to the issue at a later date.

"We will not rest until we pass the $15 minimum wage," Pelosi said.

The rules of so-called reconciliation relate to budgetary bills that are allowed to bypass Republican filibuster efforts in the Senate and pass with just a simple majority of 51 votes, rather than the typical 60.