[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 23 (Monday, February 6, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H1214-H1215]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                      INCREASING THE MINIMUM WAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
February 11, 1994, the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller] is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, later in this session we will 
be 
 [[Page H1215]] discussing efforts at reforming the welfare system in 
this country, and it is clearly the goal of both the Republicans and 
the Democrats to make sure that people move from welfare into the 
American economic system and that those individuals move into that 
economic system in the hopes of achieving economic self-sufficiency. It 
is clearly what the President has announced as he has discussed welfare 
reform and as he has discussed the minimum wage.
  The minimum wage becomes key to that effort of moving people from 
welfare, from public assistance, from dependency, to economic self-
sufficiency. We must make it clear that in this country those 
individuals that choose to go to work, those individuals that later we 
will seek to require to go to work, that they are making a logical 
economic choice for them and for their families.
  The key to doing that is making sure that the minimum wage will boost 
people above the poverty level in this country; that when they make a 
decision to get up every morning and go to work and go to work all day 
long, that in fact when they come home to their families and their 
children, they will know they succeeded in lifting their family out of 
poverty. If we do not do that it is very difficult to rationalize to 
those individuals why in fact they should go to work.
  The $4.25 minimum wage that we have today does not do that for 
individuals, and it clearly does not do that for individuals who are 
working on behalf of themselves and their families.
  What we see today is more children under the age of 6 are living in 
poverty than at any time in recent history, and 58 percent of those 
children are living in families where individuals go to work every day. 
They go to work on a part-time or full-time basis but they do not 
receive, they do not receive wages sufficient to keep their family 
above the poverty line.
  We have got to make sure that that no longer is true. And that is why 
the increase in the minimum wage is so terribly important. Clearly, 
work must pay, and that is the signal that we must send in this 
country; that you go to work, it is worth your while to go to work to 
do that job and to provide for your family. That simply is not true.
  The increase in the minimum wage that the President has asked us to 
support, 45 cents this year and 45 cents next year, will raise an 
individual above the poverty line. It unfortunately still does not 
address an individual that is working on behalf of a spouse and/or 
children in that family. But we have got to make that effort. This is 
the minimum that we can do on the minimum wage.
  Historically, the increase in the minimum wage has had very, very 
substantial bipartisan support. When we addressed this exact same 
increase, 45 cents one year and 45 cents the next year, when it was 
presented to us by President Bush it was passed overwhelmingly on a 
partisan basis; 383 Members in this House voted for it, 135 Democrats 
voted for it, crystallizing again that President Bush had the same goal 
that President Clinton did, and that is to make work pay, to get people 
to go to work and to be able to provide for their families.
  I think it is unfortunate that we now see the Republican majority 
leader say to this country that he will oppose the minimum wage with 
every fiber in his body, that he will deny these individuals who are 
seeking to provide for their family the ability to go to work and come 
home above the poverty line.
  I think it is unfortunate when we see the people of this House 
suggest that we cannot raise the minimum wage because we have to 
compete with wages in Mexico. I think we should have told the people of 
this country that that was the conditions on the passing of NAFTA, and 
that now Americans' wages are going to be tied to the wages of Mexico.
  Is that the message we have for people that go to work in this 
country every day, that you can live at the standard of living provided 
people in Mexico? That simply cannot be.

                              {time}  1250

  That simply cannot be. That cannot be the underpinnings of the 
American system of economics. It cannot be the underpinning of the free 
enterprise system, and it cannot be the underpinning for support for 
families in this country.
  We have got to understand that Americans who go to work are entitled 
to participate in the American standard of living on behalf of 
themselves and for their families.
  I am delighted to see that apparently the support for the minimum 
wage is not complete across the Republican spectrum, because this 
weekend we found out Senator Dole is not opposed to it. The question is 
only what we will have to pay to achieve the minimum wage, and the 
indications are that if you cut the capital gains tax, where 75 percent 
of the benefit goes to 10 percent of the population, then and only then 
are the Republicans prepared to try to help the millions of American 
families who go to work every day yet remain in poverty.


                          ____________________