Power Up: Biden signals he's open to negotiations on minimum wage. Progressives won't be happy. Jacqueline Alemany ��: “The Department of Housing and Urban Development has for years neglected to enforce its own environmental regulations, resulting in lead poisoning of children in at least one public housing development and potentially jeopardizing residents’ health in thousands of other federally subsidized apartments near contaminated sites, according to an inspector general report obtained by The Washington Post,” our colleague Tracy Jan reports. At the White House THE MINIMUM WAGE TEST: President Biden's road to the White House was paved in part with a pledge to increase the national minimum wage to $15 an hour. At his first official 2020 campaign event, Biden called for the hike in front of crowded union hall in Pittsburgh.