LBJ and FDR weren't as successful in pursuing their priorities as you think, which was why a lot of legislation either had to be watered down and passed on a bipartisan basis (Southern Yellow Dog Democrats really sucked! even though they gave Democrats supermajorities). Which is not to say that the acronymic leadership was below replacement level compared to what we might have got instead. Black people only even got a proper minimum wage in 1967 (1966 Fair Labor Standards Act amendment), practically speaking, and that contained many limitations that we recognize today such as the separate tipped minimum or even deprecated provisions (?**) such as the student subminimum. (There's an interesting narrative to be derived here about how leftist-favored "universal" programs rarely actually start universal but have to be built up...) But it's important to note that to the extent individual legislators could be cajoled or threatened back in the day*, it is because loyalties, priorities, and commitments were more fluid within and between factions and parties. Nowadays it's possible to more or less pin down every legislator (or at least Senator) 'where they are', which wasn't the case until the past decade. It's hard to understate how much of a change to the process it is for votes to almost be a mathematical function rather than a very personal and impressionistic area of judgement. The "uncommitted" member is a critically endangered species.
*A lot of the action involved simply bypassing roadblocks created by ranking Southern committee members using procedural methods, rather than convincing them of anything. The hurdle today is less with procedure than with the aggregate vote
**One apparent remnant of the 1966 amendment is "a minimum of not less than $4.25 per hour for employees under 20 years of age during their first 90 consecutive calendar days of employment with an employer."
Well, we don't know anything, that I am aware of, about the private process. That is, I could understand faulting Biden with giving up too easily if this is how his interactions with Manchin unfolded:If money ever moves to my nonretired friends in the form of increased wages, I doubt it will be $15/hr. Of course anything above the current rate is "better", but I don't need to point out to you that in many states, even $15/hr won't be keeping up with the cost of living. Manchin is like the proverbial petulant child...if you keep cow-towing to their belligerent behavior, they keep pushing the limits of what they think they can get away with.
Biden: So, minimum wage in the package
Manchin: Nah
Biden: I've done all I can
But I don't see why we should assume such a low level of commitment on Biden's part (though this is bad, albeit itself offset by 100% COBRA subsidy).
Under the plan passed by the House, individuals earning up to $75,000 per year and couples making up to $150,000 per year would qualify for the full $1,400 stimulus payment. The size of the payments then begins to scale down before zeroing out for individuals making $100,000 per year and couples making $200,000.
Under the changes agreed to by Biden and Senate Democratic leadership, individuals earning $75,000 per year and couples earning $150,000 would still receive the full $1,400-per-person benefit. However, the benefit would disappear for individuals earning more than $80,000 annually and couples earning more than $160,000.
That means singles making between $80,000 and $100,000 and couples earning between $160,000 and $200,000 would be newly excluded from a partial benefit under the revised structure Biden agreed to.
Theoretically there are some genuine hardball measures that might be used to drive Manchin to cooperation, such as threatening federal defunding of West Virginia in the form of highways or military bases. Going really below the belt, the President could threaten to have Manchin's family investigated for dirty dealings. I do doubt Biden would ever go so far as to consider either of these tactics. I wouldn't advocate for them either, except in service of meta-political legislation such as voting rights, new states, or even judicial reform, because this isn't the sort of winch one can apply continually before the rope breaks; Manchin would soon get angry enough to call the bluff.
Other than the hardball tactics I mentioned above, the basis of negotiation in the barest sense would be to ask Manchin what he's comfortable with and try to work him up as much as you can with persuasion (arguing the case) and blandishment (constituent, personal, political, or partisan benefit distinct from the policy under negotiation). We literally discussed avoiding pre-compromise like 3 years ago.
I doubt such inflationary pressures obtain in practice. If you mean the perpetual inflationary growth of the entire economy/currency, AFAIK it has to do with the comprehensive monetary policy in the developed world since WW2 - prior to which used to be both inflationary and deflationary cycles - not regulations such as minimum wage.
Wage push pressures of the sort the Fed tried to crush in the 70s and 80s may have some influence over inflation, but the concept of the wage push is that workers broadly speaking have enough power to bargain from management higher wages and benefits, a situation that doesn't exist but should. We evidently have better mechanisms for controlling inflation (what the targets ought to be is a whole other question) than suppressing labor. Anyway, a low government-set minimum wage doesn't do that much to increase worker bargaining power on its own because it only establishes a level playing field (in theory; removing the carveouts for agriculture and tipped occupations would make it more so). We can settle the issue by indexing the minimum wage to inflation, which creates predictability and stability in all normal circumstances.
Indeed, I'm surprised the UK members haven't mentioned their minimum wage (though it may have undesirable features, such as the age tiering, and I'm not convinced about linking to median wages). Another point of comparison may be to UK state pensions and their triple lock, which generously raise the state pension by the highest of three measures: annual growth in average earnings, CPI inflation, or 2.5%. Triple-locking the minimum wage, and perhaps a whole spread of financial entitlements (e.g. SNAP, Section 8, Social Security), could be conclusive for a generation, opening more space for other political goals.
Also, important question about the US economy: What is the distribution of low-wage (<$15/hr) workers among firms by size?
Finally, another one of those telling historical graphs:
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