The N Y Times Breaking News: Republican-Led Filibuster Blocks Minimum Wage Bill in Senate (4345 hits)
(April 30, 2014) A proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10, an underpinning of President Obama’s economic agenda and an issue that Democrats hope to leverage against Republicans in the midterm elections, failed in the Senate on Wednesday.
The vote was 54 to 42.
Most Republicans voted to sustain a filibuster against the measure, saying that the increase would damage the fragile economy and force businesses to cut hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, faulted Republicans for not allowing the bill to move forward. “Right now, if you work 40 hours a week in America, in the greatest country in the world, at a federal minimum wage, you make barely over $15,000 a year,” he said. “Think about how crazy that is.”
Politics were as much a part of the debate as the larger questions of economic impact and the vitality of the middle class. Polls show the public supports an increase. A recent New York Times/CBS News poll found that two-thirds of the public favors a rise to $10.10.
