Sen. Manchin to Meet With Critics of His $15 Min. Wage Opposition

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., wants to meet with protesters who planned to pressure him over his opposition to a $15 federal minimum wage.

"The campaign agreed to the meeting but only if it included a diverse group of low-wage workers and moral leaders from the West Virginia Poor People's Campaign," Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, said in a statement Monday.

Barber said the meeting could happen as early as this week.

Protests were scheduled to take place outside Manchin's office in Charleston, West Virginia, on Monday, but moved the event online because of an ice storm.

"The demand for $15/hour is as big a fight as the one for the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s," the protest's event page reads. "A relief bill must include relief that helps the people who need it the most — the 140 million poor and low-income people who live in this country, a number that has only increased in a pandemic."

Manchin is one of two Democrat senators who have publicly opposed the proposal to increase the federal minimum wage included in President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., is the other.

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