[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 50 (Thursday, April 18, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H3639]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  CALL FOR AN INCREASE IN MINIMUM WAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the increase in 
the minimum wage. As probably has been mentioned on the floor here this 
afternoon, if an individual works full time, he or she brings home 
$8,400 a year. In a family of 4, if you have two wage earners working 
full time at the present minimum wage, they make, well, we can do the 
math, under $17,000 a year. How could it be that in a country this 
great and this decent that we do not pay a living wage to the 
hardworking people, hardworking families who want to do the best for 
their children.
  We must reward work and we must do it with a decent livable wage. I 
hope that this Congress will be increasing the minimum wage by at least 
$1, which would enable families to buy more groceries. We are talking 
about the basics.
  Another point I want to make about the minimum wage is that by 
keeping the minimum wage as low as it is, we are increasing the cost to 
the U.S. taxpayer. We have to provide food stamps, housing assistance, 
and other assistance to supplement the meager earnings that these 
people make, even though they are working full time, even welfare 
benefits I some cases. So this is not about reducing the deficit or 
anything else. It is about providing adequate rewards to Americans who 
work.
  There has been some discussion in the course of this year about the 
earned income tax credit. I believe that the cuts that were proposed 
for American working families were wrong. Our colleagues on the other 
side will say, no, we kept it in there. We kept it in for some but not 
for all of the people who were working, hoping to have families and 
contribute to our country.
  We have and we need an earned income tax credit because we have this 
artificially low minimum wage. The American taxpayer is subsidizing 
American business with food stamps, housing assistance, earned income 
tax credit, because we have such a low minimum wage.
  I saw a cartoon in the paper that I want to share with my colleagues. 
On one side it had a woman working for the minimum wage for 1 year, her 
salary, $8,400 a year, working full time, and in the other frame was an 
executive, and the average salary for corporate CEO's in our country 
would make, in 1 day, some say really in a half a day but let us be 
generous, in 1 day what this woman was making in 1 year.

                              {time}  1800

  Certainly we want to reward success and we want to honor the 
entrepreneurial spirit. But how could it be OK for us to have one 
person working 1 day for the same as the average, and I am not talking 
about the highest, I am talking about the average corporate CEO's 
salary? I think it is a matter of conscience and decency, and a sign of 
a great country, that we reward work, we increased the morale of our 
work force, we give people a chance to take themselves out of poverty 
by saying we respect you, we respect what you do. We want to give you 
the dignity that you deserve as a hard-working person in our country. 
Not by throwing some crumbs to you and making you grovel for other 
benefits and be disdained for that, but instead by giving you a living 
wage.
  Ms. McKINNEY. I did not necessarily want the gentlewoman to yield, 
but I was just thinking about the depth of your feeling and your 
compassion. It is a shame that we have leadership in this country, 
leadership that leads this country, that does not feel anything at all 
about leaving folks who are hard working, who go to work everyday, get 
up by the clock, punch out by the clock, and they want to leave them 
behind and leave the embrace of this Government away from them, yet 
they rush to those who already have.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's comment on 
that. I was particularly concerned the majority leader, Mr. Armey, said 
he would fight the increase in the minimum wage with every fiber of his 
being. He is a good guy. Let us change his mind on that subject and 
show the support, which has always been bipartisan, has always been 
bipartisan, for an increase in the minimum wage.

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