The Senate was scheduled to convene at noon EDT (1600 GMT) and was expected to hold two procedural votes on Sunday evening, unless Republicans and Democrats could reach an agreement on amendments that would allow the chamber to move more quickly to passage.

The legislation represents the biggest investment in decades in America’s roads, bridges, airports and waterways, and its passage through the evenly divided Senate would represent a major victory for President Joe Biden and a group of bipartisan lawmakers who spent months crafting the measure.

The legislation took an important step forward on Saturday, when 67 lawmakers including 18 Republicans voted to limit debate on the measure, comfortably surpassing a 60-vote threshold required for most legislation in the 100-seat Senate.

But unless all 100 senators consent to expedite the process, passage would have to wait until Monday or Tuesday under parliamentary rules that require legislation to move forward slowly and in stages.

Lawmakers in both parties have been working toward an agreement to consider a combination of Democratic, Republican and bipartisan amendments under an expedited schedule.

But the effort has been held up by opposition from Republican Senator Bill Hagerty, a freshman from Tennessee who objects to fast-tracking the legislation due in part to its effect on the federal budget deficit.

“I cannot participate in doing it this way,” Hagerty, who was former President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Japan, declared on the Senate floor on Saturday.

Hagerty announced his opposition last week, after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the legislation would increase the deficits by $256 billion over 10 years.

The CBO analysis here did not include $57 billion in added revenue that Washington could collect over the long term from the economic growth benefits of infrastructure projects. It also did not count $53 billion in unused federal supplemental unemployment funds to be returned from states.

Hagerty showed no sign of wavering late on Saturday, when he was approached on the Senate floor by a number of Republicans who fear that his opposition will prevent votes on amendments they believe could improve the legislation.

“Impasse. That’s the headline: impasse. There’s nothing below that,” Republican Senator John Cornyn later told reporters.

Despite Republican frustration, Democrats believe the deadlock on amendments poses no threat to ultimate passage of the infrastructure bill.

“At the end of the day, this legislation is too important not to pass. Too important. Failure, as they say, is not an option,” Senator Tom Carper, Democratic floor manager for the bill, told reporters. (Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by David Gregorio)

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President-elect Joe Biden’s effort to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 per hour is estimated to kill as many as 3.7 million jobs, according to a recent nonpartisan analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.

Based on the CBO’s median estimate,1.3 million workers who would otherwise be employed would be jobless in an average week in 2025, an 0.8% reduction. However, the CBO also noted that a federal minimum wage of $15 per hour would increase the wages of 17 million workers in an average week in 2025.

BIDEN’S PUSH TO RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE COULD HURT SMALL BUSINESSES

While the $15 federal minimum wage would boost workers’ earnings, the CBO says that some of the higher earnings would be offset by higher rates of joblessness.

The CBO adds that the move would also reduce business income and raise prices as higher labor costs are absorbed by business owners and passed onto consumers.

The wage hike is also expected to reduce the United States’ output slightly through the reduction in employment and a corresponding decline in the nation’s stock of capital, such as buildings, machines, and technologies.

MINIMUM WAGES SET TO RISE IN THESE STATES IN 2021

The change in earnings would mainly affect low-income families while the loss in business income would primarily impact higher-income families who are well above the poverty threshold. Though all consumers would pay higher prices, the CBO says higher-income families would face the brunt of the costs.

Taking those effects into account, the CBO estimates that total real family income in 2025, adjusted for inflation, could be reduced by $9 billion, or 0.1%.

Families whose income is below the poverty threshold would receive an additional $8 billion in real family income in 2025 with a $15 per hour minimum wage. The extra income would move, on net, roughly 1.3 million people out of poverty. For families above the poverty line, real income would fall by about $16 billion, a 0.1 percent reduction in total income.

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In addition to raising the federal minimum wage, Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus proposal would end the tipped minimum wage and sub-minimum wage for people with disabilities.

Also included in the proposal is a one-time $1,400 stimulus check, extended unemployment benefits through September, funding to accelerate vaccine distribution, a $15 billion grant program separate from the Paycheck Protection Program, and a $35 billion investment in some state, local, tribal and non-profit financing programs that can provide low-interest loans and venture capital to help small businesses.

Despite those who are skeptical of a $15 federal minimum wage’s positive impact, one study published by the University of California Labor Center suggests that the $15 federal minimum wage could help boost the nation’s economy. The study notes that the country’s current low minimum wage costs taxpayers more than $100 billion a year because nearly half of working families rely on government programs such as Medicaid or SNAP.

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Florida made headlines in November when voters approved a measure that would gradually increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2026. In addition, California, Connecticut, Illinois, and Maryland are among other states that have approved their own pathways to phase in a $15 per hour minimum wage.

Fox Business’ Megan Henney and Brittany De Lea contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/heres-how-many-jobs-bidens-proposed-15-minimum-wage-could-kill-according-to-the-cbo

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