Senate Democrats want to speed ahead with Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID stimulus. Here are 5 issues threatening to delay the bill or blow things up.

Senate Democrats are gearing up to pass President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus this week — with or without Republican support. But they still have to hash out some details, including areas of disagreement inside their own ranks.   

The House early on Saturday morning voted to pass the American Rescue Plan Act, sending it over to the Senate where it'll face several changes before it can get to Biden's desk for signature into law. 

The Senate is using a mechanism called "budget reconciliation" that allows Democrats to pass the stimulus through via a simple majority vote, rather than the 60 votes required to defeat a filibuster. 

Both Republicans and Democrats agree the government needs to inject more money into helping reopen schools, distributing the vaccine, and aiding struggling small businesses. But Republicans are raising concerns about passing another pricey measure after five other stimulus bills became law under then-President Donald Trump. 

No House Republicans supported the Democrats' latest stimulus bill, and the same partisan scenario is expected when the measure moves through the upper chamber. 

Even though Democrats potentially have 50 votes in the Senate — and the help of Vice President Kamala Harris as a tie-breaker — to pass Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus, they still have to coalesce behind the fine print and cannot afford to lose the support of Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who is among the most conservatives Democrat in the Senate.

A single Democratic defection would likely blow up a stimulus deal, and arguments over any individual provisions do threaten to slow them down. Democratic leaders want to send a bill to Biden for signature by March 14, when some of the existing aid lapses. 

Here are the biggest sticking points and procedural issues they have to resolve before the next round of help can go out.

Who gets another round of direct payments? 

Biden wants to give most people in the US another $1,400 in direct checks, and the provision was included in the House-passed bill. 

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The checks were among the most popular provisions in earlier stimulus bills. The first round offered people $1,200 and the second round of checks provided $600. Individuals received each amount as long as they made less than $75,000 a year. 

The money got lower for people earning more than $75,000 a year. Many lawmakers have argued that higher-earners shouldn't have received the payments. Republicans previously demanded that the checks be capped at $1,000 and go only to people who earn less than $50,000 a year.

Some Democrats are also wary about giving checks to higher-income earners. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip tasked with counting his party's votes, told reporters in early February that it was "hard to defend" sending checks to some families making $300,000 a year. 

"I believe everyone has said one way or another we need to be open to improving that," Durbin said. "I'm one of them."

Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour

Biden's proposal included a provision to gradually raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour. But on Thursday, a referee known as the Senate parliamentarian said the minimum wage increase couldn't pass under budget reconciliation.

Bills can only pass under reconciliation if they affect the government's spending, revenues, and debt-limit laws. 

Despite Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough's ruling, the House passed the raise as part of the stimulus anyway. Most congressional Democrats support that change, as do 58% of voters, according to polling from Yahoo News/YouGov.

But the wage increase is in limbo in the Senate.

Senate Democrats said last week that they planned to use a backdoor approach that would levy a 5% tax on the payrolls of large corporations that pay below $15 an hour. It would be paired with tax credits to incentivize small businesses to raise their employees' wages.

By Sunday, however, they appeared to have abandoned their plan. House progressives and outside groups are urging senators to overrule the parliamentarian and pass a $15 minimum wage anyway, but the Biden White House has said it doesn't want to go that route. 

Senate rules aren't the only factor getting in the way of a minimum wage increase. Manchin doesn't support the $15 minimum wage but has said he prefers an increase to $11 an hour. Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona also opposes it, and another 10 senators are noncommittal. 

State and local funding 

The House-passed stimulus met Biden's request to provide $350 billion to state and local governments. The White House has said the funding would help state and local governments with struggling budgets and stave off layoffs of teachers, firefighters, and police officers. It's also intended to help states with their COVID-19 vaccine plans and to help schools reopen safely. 

Congressional Democrats have pushed for far more funding in past bills. The HEROES Act the Democratic-controlled House passed in May would have given $1 trillion to state and local governments, and the version they passed in October would have given $436 billion. The GOP-controlled Senate refused to take up the legislation. 

So far, Democrats haven't openly opposed the lower amount for states that Biden is proposing now. Instead, lawmakers are wondering whether the $350 billion allocation would be too high. 

Republicans say the money isn't needed and contend states will use it instead to plug shortfalls in their underfunded pension programs.

GOP lawmakers opposed to that kind of funding cite recent findings by JPMorgan's research arm that state tax revenues declined by only 0.12% in 2020 compared to 2019. Some states did better than others, though, and the study didn't account for additional spending states had to take on to battle the pandemic. 

Increasing federal jobless aid

Unemployed people are getting $300 a week on top of their unemployment payments as part of the COVID-19 rescue package Trump signed into law before leaving office. But those payments are set to begin expiring March 14 if Congress doesn't act before then.

Most senators agree the help needs to continue, but they disagree on the details. The House-passed COVID-19 rescue package would increase expanded unemployment payments to $400 a week and would run through August 29. 

Some Senate Democrats want it to run a month or two longer while Republicans want it to end in June. Manchin is trying to reduce the weekly payments to $300. 

The total is still less than the first pandemic relief package Congress passed in March 2020, which added $600 a week to unemployment payments. Some Republicans complained that people were making more money while unemployed than they were while they had jobs. Supporters of the provision said it was best for more people to avoid going to work to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Shoring up private pension plans

The House coronavirus rescue bill would funnel roughly $86 billion into multiemployer pension plans that are bordering on insolvency. The money would go out from 2022 to 2024 to 185 pensions jointly run by labor unions and employers, allowing the plans to pay full benefits through 2051, according to CBO. 

The provision is key for unions, which heavily support Democrats, but it wasn't something Biden asked for when he outlined a plan for COVID-19 relief.

Republicans say the provision isn't related to the pandemic, but the parliamentarian has ruled that it can pass under budget reconciliation. 

This story originally ran on February 5 and has been updated to reflect the latest news.