Fifth Cir. Backs Biden $15 Contractor Wage, Adding to Split (1)

A New Orleans-based appeals court upheld the Biden administration’s $15 minimum wage for federal contractors, adding to a growing circuit split over whether the president had the power to issue that executive order.

The order was a permissible exercise of former President Joe Biden’s authority under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled Tuesday.

“Given the statute’s plain language on this account, nearly all courts around the country have recognized the breadth of the President’s authority under § 121(a),” Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, a Biden appointee, ...