Senate Votes Towards Minimal Wage Enhance Throughout Pandemic as Biden’s Financial Plan Strikes Ahead

“It is not the last bill that we will hand over,” said Ms. Pelosi. “This is the rescue package.”

During the vote, Ms. Collins, who led a group of 10 senators who met with Mr. Biden this week, posted a letter to the White House in hopes of persuading him to take a smaller $ 618 billion stimulus package in which she argued that Mr. Biden overestimated the money needed to reopen schools and support state and local governments.

In an interview, she asked the president to use the money already approved in previous stimulus packages.

“There are hundreds of billions of dollars in unspent money,” said Ms. Collins.

The Democrats were expected to legislate and start a committee debate in the House of Representatives next week to help guide the plan through the budget balancing process. You could then bypass a filibuster that can only be defeated by 60 votes and instead pass it by a simple majority so that the package can be passed without Republican votes.

While the details remain in the flow, those familiar with the plan said it would largely mirror Mr Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion proposal. The most significant deviation is likely to be to reduce the cost of direct payments to Americans.

At the urging of Mr. Biden, the maximum amount of these payments would remain at $ 1,400. But Democrats and the government are discussing phasing them out faster than the $ 600 payments approved by Congress in December for higher-income Americans, meaning those who earn more would get smaller checks.

Democrats could further reduce the cost of the plan by lowering the income threshold at which payments expire. Mr Biden has suggested starting the exit for individuals earning $ 75,000 a year and couples earning $ 150,000 a year. Legislators are discussing lowering these thresholds to $ 50,000 for individuals and $ 100,000 for couples, although they haven’t made a final decision as to whether to do so.

One of the Republican ideas that seemed to resonate with the White House was a proposal from Utah Senator Mitt Romney who put forward a plan to send payments of up to $ 1,250 a month to families with children to help Americans do the same encourage more children while reducing child poverty.