Biden’s $15 Wage Plan Faces Debate Over Pandemic-Era Impact (1)

The minimum wage increases proposed as part of President-elect Joe Biden’s Covid-19 stimulus plan will face the usual forces for and against higher wage mandates—but with the heightened intensity of the pandemic’s effects on workers and businesses.

Biden had long promised to propose a $15 minimum wage, in line with the House-approved Raise the Wage Act, but on Thursday he flagged the wage increase as an early priority for his administration by including it in his $1.9 trillion stimulus and relief package.

“No one working 40 hours a week should live below the poverty line,” Biden said Thursday while ...