Biden’s Executive Order on $15 Minimum Wage

There has been much debate on the US minimum wage as millions of Americans can barely afford to live off the $7.5 minimum wage per hour.

As the new President of the United States, Joe Biden on Friday signed two executive orders aimed at providing additional food assistance for millions of Americans in distress. The US government will also launch a process that requires federal contractors to pay their workers a minimum wage of $15, as well as emergency paid leave.s

“The government should be a model employer. By taking the first step toward raising the minimum wage for federal workers to $15 per hour, President Biden will improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of American workers,” Senior Director of Employment Policy at the center for American Progress Karla Walter. “This order will also help close pay disparities for women and Black and Latino workers, who are more likely to be employed in government and the low-wage industries that our government contracts out, such as nursing care, building, and administrative services.”

The minimum wage will not come immediately. Instead, President Biden has ordered the federal government “to start the work that would allow him to issue” the order within his first 100 days in office, according to the White House.

These executive actions are among the list of executive actions he has taken so far to kick off his tenure and set his administration for the benefit of Americans.

“We’re at a precarious moment in our economy. We saw again today 900,000 new claims for unemployment insurance, another week at a level above any week during the Great Recession,” said Brian Deese, White House National Economic Director, on a Thursday night call. “More than … 10 million Americans are out of work, 14 million Americans are behind on their rent and barely 30 million adults and as many as 12 million children are experiencing food insecurity.”

The executive orders Biden signed on Friday will also restore bargaining power and other workers’ protections that were lost during former President Donald Trump’s term as president. In October 2020, Trump made an executive order to reclassify a portion of federal workers such that it would be easier to fire politically appointed leaders of agencies, the White House said. Biden’s new orders will nullify Trump’s “Schedule F” order.

In addition to his string of orders, Biden plans to sign an order for all agencies to take action amid the coronavirus pandemic to increase federal food assistance programs, and help families receive economic aid. All of which are part of the President’s drive to aid struggling families with the next economic aid plan he outlined last week.

The $1.9 trillion relief plan – as outlined by Biden – will send out second stimulus checks of $1,400 to Americans. It will also include extended unemployment benefits and nutrition assistance, as well as provide additional support to struggling renters and homeowners.  

The Biden economic aid plan would not take effect immediately as it would have to go through Congress for voting. However, the plans outlined in Friday’s executive orders do not require legislation and may take effect faster.

Deese argued at a White House briefing earlier on Friday that the right step to take was a continuous expansion of aid, instead of waiting to see if the $900 billion aid package Congress passed in December 2020 will be sufficient or not. He cited an analysis by Moody Analytics, stating that Biden’s relief plan would return the country to full employment a year earlier than the initial projection and create 7.5 million jobs in 2021.

Vice President of the Women’s Initiative at CAP, Shilpa Phadke said President Biden is keeping to his words to ensure that “federal workers have access to emergency paid leave, a critical workplace benefit to protect the health and economic security of workers and their families.”