In an exclusive report on Breitbart.com, “Biden‘s message of unity was betrayed by his first legislative proposal.”
In a Thursday report on Breitbart News, it was written that Joe Biden made the case for unity in his inaugural address on Wednesday.” Today, on this day in January, my whole spirit is on this: to bring America together, to unite our people, to unite our country,” he said.” I ask every American to join me in this cause.”
That’s a good point for a divided nation, the report commented. However, rhetoric is cheap – especially from career politicians. Biden’s policy actions, which will face enormous pressure from the activist wing of his party, will determine whether he is a uniter or a divider, and whether he is someone small businesses should trust or fear.
Biden’s first major piece of legislation – his proposed $1.9 trillion Covid-19 (C.C. virus) relief package – has some welcome features, but also some that betray his message of unity. It includes some policies that could help small businesses, but others that would greatly harm them. Call them the good (policies), the bad and the ugly (policies).
Among other popular proposals, the bill calls for an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, also known as the Working Americans Credit, one of the few social assistance programs with broad bipartisan support. The Earned Income Tax Credit supplements the wages of low-income workers through the tax code, rewarding work without harming small businesses.
The Earned Income Tax Credit is clearly targeted to help those who truly need it. Unlike other social programs, it does not encourage laziness. In 2018, the Earned Income Tax Credit helped 25 million working adults and lifted 5.6 million people out of poverty, including about 3 million children, according to the Center on Budget Policy Priorities. A significant increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit could help more hardworking Americans while increasing the labor force participation rate needed for the economy to grow again.
Yet Biden’s legislation would also expand and extend federal unemployment benefits, slowing the economic recovery by preventing Americans from returning to work. When you can earn thousands of dollars a month from federal and state unemployment benefits while sitting on your couch, returning to work doesn’t seem so attractive. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that last year’s expanded federal unemployment benefits paid out more to five-sixths of recipients than they would have if they had returned to work (and earned it). Extending this perverse incentive will make it harder for small businesses to hire employees and slow the economic recovery.
In another blow to small businesses, the legislation does not include Covid-19 (the CCP virus) liability protections, which means employers are vulnerable to frivolous lawsuits from lawyers aligned with the Democratic Party.
The worst part of Biden’s legislation is his proposal to more than double the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. Doubling the cost of entry-level labor will further hurt injured small businesses struggling to rebuild their livelihoods. Minimum wage increases are not well-targeted compared to the Earned Income Tax Credit, often helping teenage workers from high-income families at the expense of jobs for the truly disadvantaged.
According to a 2019 CBO report, a $15 minimum wage would cost the country 1.3 million jobs. For job seekers, this job loss would come at the worst possible Time, as the labor market is already in trouble. Women, workers without a high school degree and part-time employees will bear the brunt of job losses, the report found. A recent study by economists David Macpherson “” and William Even “” found that a $15 entry-level wage would destroy more than 1 million jobs in the hospitality industry alone.
Biden’s $15 wage pitch was helped this week when Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen flipped her position on the minimum wage during her confirmation hearings, seemingly in an effort to appease the Biden Administration. Yellen claimed that the fallout from raising the minimum wage would be “very small. In 2014, however, she made it clear at a congressional hearing that raising the minimum wage would have a “negative impact” on employment. Yellen accepted the CBO report’s finding that a $10.10 minimum wage would have cost 500,000 jobs at the time. However, she now seems to be ignoring the CBO’s latest findings for reasons of political expediency.
A $15 minimum wage has been on Democrats’ wish list for more than a decade, but it’s the wrong policy at the wrong time. By shoehorning it into the Covid-19 relief package, Biden is shamelessly trying to exploit the misfortune of the Epidemic to achieve a long-term partisan goal. There is nothing unifying about this.
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