Why not raise everyone to $500/hr and make everyone millionaires? 
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden’s push to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour faces significant hurdles in Congress because of strong opposition from Republicans, skepticism from some centrist Democrats, as well as obscure Senate procedures.
Biden proposed the $15-an-hour minimum wage hike in his $1.9 trillion stimulus plan, which Congressional lawmakers are starting to debate. Republicans are expected to oppose the measure. If Biden wants bipartisan support for his overall stimulus proposal, he would likely be forced to jettison the wage hike.
Democrats are also laying the groundwork to pass their stimulus package through “reconciliation,” a Senate procedure that allows legislation to pass with a narrow majority, avoiding a filibuster. However, that process is supposed to be used for matters related to spending, taxes, and the budget, meaning there’s a chance the wage hike could be struck as inadmissible under Senate rules.
Even if Biden can overcome the parliamentary obstacle, it is not clear the $15-an-hour wage measure would win the unanimous support of 50 Democratic senators to pass it through reconciliation. Only 38 have so far cosponsored legislation to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour, although virtually all Democratic senators have said they support some increase in the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
“There’s unanimity among Democrats that we have to raise the minimum wage. The question is how high and how fast,” said Jim Kessler, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and now executive vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist think-tank.