[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 30 (Wednesday, February 15, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H1765]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HOME ECONOMICS 100

  (Mr. GUTIERREZ asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, our majority leader tells us that the 
minimum wage is a bad idea, and that he should know. After all Mr. 
Armey was a college economics professor. Well, maybe he should have 
taught home economics instead. Every home economics teacher knows about 
food costs and how far you have to stretch dollars to feed your family.
  A home economics teacher shows students how to make meals and bake 
cookies, but also tells that you have to skip some dinners and desserts 
if you cannot afford them. And, even though it is a concept far too 
complicated for someone with a Ph.D. in economics, the fact is that you 
cannot afford those dinners and deserts if your wages never go up, but 
minimum wage opponents are not looking at you and your family, they are 
looking at charts and graphs.
  They are not looking at your kitchen table, they are looking at 
tables of statistics. Well, hard-working Americans earning minimum wage 
are not statistics. They are real people trying to earn a decent, 
livable wage. So, I say to minimum wage opponents, maybe you got a 
Ph.D. in economics, but you get an ``F'' when it comes to the real 
economics of real families.


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