Bernie Sanders's push for a $15 minimum wage stalled — but he has a plan B

The chair of the Senate Budget Committee on Thursday revealed a plan to boost wages after an effort to raise the minimum wage to $15 in the COVID stimulus bill was blocked by Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough.

Following the ruling, Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-VT) released a statement.

"I strongly disagree with tonight's decision by the Senate Parliamentarian. The CBO made it absolutely clear that raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour had a substantial budgetary impact and should be allowed under reconciliation. It is hard for me to understand how drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was considered to be consistent with the Byrd Rule, while increasing the minimum wage is not," Sanders wrote. "60 percent of the American people want to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour."

"I'm confident that we have a majority in the United States Senate including the Vice President that would vote to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour as part of President Biden's American Rescue Plan. Yet because of the archaic and undemocratic rules of the Senate we are unable to move forward to end starvation wages in this country and raise the income of 32 million struggling Americans," he wrote.