Job Creators Network Calls on Biden Administration to Cut Bloated Covid-19 Relief Package and Job-Killing $15 Minimum Wage and Keep Focus on Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit

Washington, DC — Today, the Biden Administration is releasing its proposed Covid-19 relief package.

Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of the Job Creators Network, released the following statement:

Just weeks after the passage of the last Covid-19 relief package, which provided long-overdue PPP funds for struggling small businesses, the Biden Administration wants to pass a nearly $2 trillion bill that will only slow the economic recovery and worsen the country’s dire fiscal situation. Expanding and extending unemployment benefits will discourage Americans from going back to work. And spending hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up blue state finances rewards bad fiscal decisions that predate the pandemic. The worst part of the Biden Administration’s proposal is the provision to more than double the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Small businesses, which have been decimated by the pandemic, would have to contend with dramatic increases in their entry-level labor costs — the straw that will break the backs of countless low-margin employers around the country. With small businesses finally turning a corner as vaccinations put the end of the pandemic in sight, now is the worst possible time to burden job creators with this job-killing mandate.

A better approach to help entry-level workers and small businesses is the Biden Administration’s proposal to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, a.k.a. the Working Americans Credit, which supplements incomes through the tax code. This program, which enjoys bipartisan support, is one of the most successful social programs in American history because it rewards work, without burdening small businesses. The Biden Administration should cut this bloated Covid-19 relief package and job-killing $15 minimum wage In favor of a tailored bill that keeps the valuable expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit.