Opinion: Bernie Sanders wants you to know the high cost of our low minimum wage

[Donkees]

Helaine Olen

Feb. 27, 2021 at 8:00 a.m. EST

Excerpt:

Last year, the Government Accountability Office — at Sanders’s behest — released a survey showing that Walmart employees were the largest group of employees using safety-net benefits in the 11 states it studied. McDonald’s came in second. Walmart paid its six highest-ranking executives $112 million in 2019. Earlier this month, the company announced it would increase its stock dividend and buy back $20 billion in company stock.

No one aspires to get by on government benefits, Sanders noted when I spoke with him before the hearing. “If you say to somebody, ‘Would you rather be working for a decent wage so that you can provide for your family? Or would you rather be working for a starvation wage and have to fill out government forms and get government help?,’ I think most people would say, ‘You know what, pay me a decent wage and I’ll take care of my family.’ ”

Sanders invited the chief executives of McDonald’s and Walmart to testify at the hearing and talk the issue out. Both turned the invitation down. Instead, we got to hear Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) point out how hard small-business owners are working to stay afloat during the pandemic, and that raising the minimum wage is a burden they can’t afford.

Later, Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) claimed, with a straight face: “This is a big discussion, we need to slow it down.” Once again, the federal minimum wage has been set at $7.25 for more than a decade. This discussion is plenty slow already.

But courtesy of arcane Senate rules, Braun is going to get his wish, at least for now. It’s not clear what comes next. The Biden administration could simply overrule or replace the parliamentarian — something Republicans have had no problem doing in the past — but has said it won’t do that. A stand-alone bill for a $15 minimum wage is unlikely to receive 60 votes, and is unlikely to survive a filibuster. Sanders says he will introduce an amendment to the current covid-19 legislation that will punish at tax time large corporations that don’t pay their employees at least $15 an hour.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/27/bernie-sanders-minimum-wage/

[mdelaguna]

1. Just make it happen Biden admin

By any means necessary. They need to care about what their voters want. Time for hardball.

[area51]

2. +1 n/t

[aocommunalpunch]

3. Put it in the bill anyway.

It’s within the power of the budget chair, yes? Make people vote on it. Transparency, dammit. It’s amazing what happens to shadowy shit when you shine a little light on it.