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WASHINGTON—Congressman Paul Tonko (D-NY) has issued the following statement responding to the Senate Parliamentarian ruling that a $15 minimum wage will not be considered under the budget reconciliation procedures being used to advance the current COVID rescue package.

“While I respect the Senate Parliamentarian, her offices high in the Capitol may be too far removed from the lives and livelihoods of millions of working Americans,” said Congressman Tonko. “A gradual increase to a $15 minimum wage would be a significant raise for millions of Americans on the job. It would especially help many frontline workers who have braved this pandemic and kept our communities going for more than a year, often with little or no additional pay.”

Tonko added, “the parliamentarian’s theory that a $15 minimum wage is “merely incidental” to the work we are doing in this COVID rescue budget bill is simply detached from reality. In our effort to respond to this pandemic, the American people should not be held hostage to arcane and incomprehensible rules decided by an unelected bureaucrat. The Senate must immediately reform its outdated rules so we can at long last get the people’s business done. Speaker Pelosi is making the right call by including the gradual minimum wage increase to $15 in our House bill. I look forward to voting for this common sense and robust COVID response later today that is already so long overdue for countless American families and communities already pushed to their limits by this pandemic.”

After more than a decade with no increase in the federal minimum wage—the longest period in U.S. history—raising the wage would better support millions of Americans at a time when they need it most. An estimated 27 million workers would directly benefit, and the wage increase would lift more than 900,000 Americans out of poverty. In the Capital Region, research shows that 73,000 workers would benefit from a raise in minimum wage.

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