Congressional Record, Volume 142 Issue 53 (Tuesday, April 23, 1996)

[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 53 (Tuesday, April 23, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H3705-H3712]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

A DIALOG ON INCREASING THE MINIMUM WAGE

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Collins of Georgia). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of May 12, 1995, the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms.
DeLauro] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority
leader.
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, what I want to do is to engage in this
effort tonight to have a dialog, if you will, and discussion with
several of my colleagues to talk about the minimum wage. I will yield
to my colleague, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Gene Green], and thank
him for participating with us tonight. I would ask him to just kick off
this effort tonight for us.
Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my
colleague, the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mr. DeLauro], for
organizing this very special order on the minimum wage.
Mr. Speaker, I join a number of our colleagues tonight in support of
an increase in the minimum wage. Since the President proposed
increasing the minimum wage to 5.15 over 2 years, a river of ink has
flowed on both sides for this issue. According to the latest national
poll, 87 percent of Americans favor an increase in the minimum wage.
Howver, some of my colleague in the Republican Party continue to oppose
a minimum wage increase, and they even oppose the minimum wage.
In fact, I may have taken the gentlewoman's poster, because this is
such a great quote: ``Emotional appeals about working families trying
to get by on $4.25 an hour are hard to resist. Fortunately, such
families don't really exist.'' That is why my colleague and a good
friend of mine, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Tom Delay], I want him to
know that I have these families in my district that are trying to get
by on $4.25 an hour tonight, Maybe that is our problem. Maybe they have
lost touch with what is actually happening out in America, with
families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour. There ar families that are
trying to do that, and it is a shame that maybe some of our colleagues
in Washington do not understand that.
Mr. Speaker, Republicans continue to argue that an increase may lead
to higher unemployment and increase the number of welfare recipients.
Mr. Speaker, the logic of this just does not match. Ask anybody on the
street if increasing the minimum wage will increase welfare recipients.
Mr. Speaker, the best welfare reform we can pass is a job that pays a
decent wage to get people off welfare.
Additionally, some of these same critics claim that the minimum wage
is paid mainly to teenagers, and that an increase would cause layoffs
of these teenagers. Americans know that the real value of the minimum
wage has steadily declined for the past 15 years, and that minimum wage
earners have not seen an increase since April 1, 1991. Fifty-seven
years ago Congress

[[Page H3706]]

passed its first minimum wage of 25 cents an hour, and 57 years later,
Americans are working to find that the real value of the minimum wage
has steadily declined during these past 15 years. Minimum wage
increases have been passed bipartisanly. In fact, our current Senate
majority leader and our current Speaker voted to increase the minimum
wage in the late 1980's.

Minimum wage earners today have seen a fall of 45 cents in real value
since the 1991 increase. The idea that an increase in the minimum wage
could lead to an increased number of welfare recipients is simply not
correct. In fact, the opposite is true. Again, the best welfare reform
is a job that pays a livable wage. What critics fail to recognize is
that the current minimum wage does not even provide a livable wage.
Using today's minimum wage, workers putting in their 40 hours a week
for 52 weeks a year will earn just over $8,800.
In my district, the current poverty line for a family of three is
$12,000. You can work full-time, one wage-earner in your family,
minimum wage, and still be eligible for food stamps, so this quote by
my colleague, and again, a good friend, I would say to the gentleman
from Texas, I have families in my district who are trying to struggle
on the minimum wage at $4.25 an hour.
This working family is supported by a minimum wage earner well below
the national poverty rate and is eligible in collecting food stamps.
However, this same family, if we had an increase to $5.15 an hour,
figuring in the maximum earned income tax credit, would be $1,500 above
the poverty level if we increase the minimum wage. This increase would
give my constituents and other working Americans the ability to work
their way off of the welfare rolls.
It is argued that the minimum wage is a wage for teenagers, and
therefore only at entry level. While this may have been true in the
past, in fact, I remember working for minimum wage at $1.25 an hour,
and I was glad when Congress increased that minimum wage, but the
Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the average minimum wage earner
today is over 20, 20 or over, and more likely to be female and working
full-time. The minimum wage is demonstratively no longer just for
teenagers.
If Congress does not increase the minimum wage our welfare rolls will
grow, quite to the contrary of what may be said on the other side of
the aisle. But with a minimum wage increase, these families will have
the opportunity to be more self-sufficient. We should have a clear vote
on a minimum wage increase, without cluttering up or including tax cut
issues or other issues the Republican majority may want.
One of the complaints I hear so often, and my colleague, the
gentlewoman from Houston, TX [Ms. Jackson-Lee], knows this, people ask
us all the time, they say, ``Why can you not just vote on a bill on its
issue, instead of putting in everything but the kitchen sink?'' That is
what I am worried we are going to see. We are going to see extraneous
issues thrown in the minimum wage. If 87 percent of the American people
want a minimum wage increase, they deserve a vote straight up and down
on a minimum wage increase.
House Republicans are talking a lot about working families, but they
continue to show that they may be out of touch with where reality is
at. American families are working harder than ever, and it is tougher
to get ahead when working full time does not even put enough money in
your pocket to put food on the table without food stamps.
Republicans have a golden opportunity to give the American families
what they really need, a decent wage for a decent day's work. If
Congress is serious about getting people off of the welfare rolls,
Congress should allow Americans to work their way off of it by
increasing the minimum wage.
I would like to thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for this
opportunity tonight to talk about that, and also for swiping your
poster for a few minutes.
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his
comments, which are just incredibly accurate about what we want to try
to do in getting people off of welfare, to work. With regard to the
comments by your colleague and my colleague, the gentleman from Texas
[Tom DeLay] I might add, he is the third ranking member of the
Republican hierarchy in the House of Representatives, and his
commentary is ``Emotional appeals about working families trying to get
by on $4.25 an hour and hard to resist. Fortunately, such families
don't really exist.''

{time} 1900

This is the same gentleman. Let me tell the Members about his
comments earlier this year during the Government shutdown. He said, and
I quote:

I am not a Federal employee. I am a constitutional officer.
My job is in the Constitution of the United States. I am not
a government employee. I am in the Constitution.

These were his comments, which is why he would not support suspending
congressional paychecks during the Federal Government shutdown in
December of 1995. One of the architects of this shutdown says that he
is not a government employee, he should not give back his paycheck
during the Government shutdown, someone who makes over $130,000 a year.
Now he has the nerve just today to say that families who are
struggling on $4.25 an hour, roughly about $8,500 a year, do not exist.
This will give us a little bit of a taste of what we are dealing with
in this body, and how out of touch some of our colleagues are with the
people that they purport to represent in this body.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield now to my colleague from Texas
[Ms. Jackson-Lee] and thank her for joining us this evening.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from
Connecticut, and I thank her very much for giving us an opportunity to
visit this question, as we have been visiting it now for a year.
We, as Democrats, have said that the increase in a minimum wage has
been long overdue. Let me say to the Members that I remained open on
the question as relates to listening to all those who would counter
with a rebuttal of that concept. Why not open the door and hear what
the discussion is all about?
I listened to someone more clearly, however, and that was the
Honorable Barbara Jordan, who held this particular seat in the 18th
Congressional District prior to certainly her demise this year, but
certainly held this seat as it was first originated in 1972.
She came to this Congress offering to propose an increase in the
minimum wage on the basis of social justice, and her comment was that
she came here to remedy the social inequity and the economic inequity
of her constituents in the 18th Congressional District in the State of
Texas. She realized that if there was high unemployment there in
communities where people were seeking to work, the point was that we
needed to create jobs and we needed to create a decent wage.
So I come today to be able to say to all of those naysayers that in
fact increasing the minimum wage will not decrease jobs. For example,
the jobs are created mostly--and I have great respect for my
constituents and others in the small business community, I know that we
have done many things to try to lift their load--but the major jobs are
created by major corporations in this country, and we realize that
those major corporations are now benefiting by enormous profits. We can
look at corporate CEO salaries and see the enormous increase that has
come about. We are just asking for the plain working citizen to have
this opportunity.
In 1979, if we looked at the minimum wage at that time, it was equal
to today's $6.25. We are not even looking to increase it to that
amount; 90 or 95 percent, to lift it to something like $5.25, a bare
increase for our working families who have opted to work instead of get
on welfare.
In fact, those families that have been mentioned that do not exist,
they exist in my community and many communities out through America. In
fact, they are not teenagers, they are heads of households who are
trying to maintain a family unit. In fact, our increase will give a
mere $1,800 increase per year that will allow those families to do
something like pay their utility bills, their water bill, their rent,
to provide the necessities for their children that go to school,
because we have people making $4.25 an hour who have a family of four.

[[Page H3707]]

I am aghast at the interpretation and, as well, the definitions that
have been attributed to middle class and lower middle class and upper
middle class. I am just maybe trying to find the dictionary that these
definitions are coming from.
I have a colleague here in the House, a Republican who has indicated,
``When I see someone who is making anywhere from $300,000 to $750,000 a
year, that is middle class. When I see anyone above that, that is upper
middle class.'' This is a statement by the Republicans, and they have
here listing $100,000 to $200,000, that is lower middle class; $300,000
to $750,000, that is middle class. I guess $750,000 and above is upper
middle class.
We are talking about the basic infrastructure of this country, the
kind of people who day to day get up and drive that 1979 car or that
1982 car, that get on our public transportation, that work every
day, grown-ups, not teenagers, who need this kind of increase to make
them whole. This is certainly evidence that we are not connecting on
the other side of the aisle, that they are not listening to the
American people, the 87 percent.

My colleagues from Texas and of course from Connecticut are so right
that we have got to speak for those individuals who are simply asking
for a better day to see the end of the tunnel. Let me just say as I
bring my comments to a close, thanking the gentlewoman so very much for
giving us this very vital opportunity, when we begin to talk about
welfare reform, it really pains me that we are not talking
realistically.
We are not talking realistically because we are suggesting that an
individual should rid themselves of a safety net, not because they want
to be a hold or a deadbeat, if you will, a hold on this Nation, or to
draw on taxpayers' dollars or working Americans' dollars, but because
they simply have to survive, and because of whatever reasons, viable
reasons, their children have to survive.
When we reach the point where these individuals have made commitments
to work, and everyone I speak to that is on welfare wants to work, then
we must be able to provide the opportunity for them to support
themselves and their children. That requires child care sometimes. It
requires health care, of course, with that, and it requires making ends
meet by paying for your food and your housing.
How can they do that on $4.25, when a grown man will come to me and
say, ``I don't know, I'm prepared to give up, and maybe welfare is the
best alternative because I'm working but I can't make ends meet on
$4.25. I want to stay in the work force. I want to work.''
Those companies who have people employed, it is well known that the
increase of minimum wage will not in any way generate a major loss of
jobs or a loss of profits. It may even increase productivity. We must
begin to work together on this issue, small businesses, large
businesses, Republicans, Democrats, working America to make America
better.
I will simply say let us get rid of the politics, just like we wanted
to pass a clean continuing resolution to keep the Government open. Let
us pass a clean minimum wage bill, and anyone who wants to come and
debate us on the loss of jobs, I am prepared to debate them, to show
the numbers, that there is no documentation in fact that will show that
there will be a demise of productivity.
My last point is that we have had over 100 economists tell us that an
increase in the minimum wage will not cause a demise of this country.
We should listen and move forward to make Americans whole.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for this time
to discuss this very important issue.
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Texas for her
remarks and for participating this evening. When the gentlewoman holds
up a chart that has someone in this body who truly believes that middle
class America's salary range is somewhere between $300,000 and $750,000
a year, and literally believes that, and then we have someone who says
that such families do not really exist, families that make $4.25 an
hour, roughly about $8,500 a year, once again it emphasizes how truly
out of touch that some Members and Members in the majority are in this
body with the people that we represent.
We took this special order tonight really to urge our colleagues on
the other side of the aisle, Speaker Gingrich, the Republican
leadership, really to stop their cynical effort to stiff working
Americans. Bring to this floor legislation to raise the minimum wage.
Do not do what the public believes we do all of the time, and that is
to cloud the issue of minimum wage with a variety of other pieces that
will kill a 90-cent increase in the minimum wage.
My colleagues and I know that hard-working American families are
scrambling just to make ends meet. They scramble to put together the
money that they need to pay their bills every week. These families have
done the responsible thing to raise their families. They work hard
every day. They try to feed their kids. They try to pay their bills.
They work and they struggle. They pay taxes that seem always to be
going up but their salaries do not go up.
These are good citizens who want to know that they are going to be
rewarded for a lifetime of work, and that is that they have taken the
personal responsibility in their lives to do the right thing, and that
that needs to get recognized by those of us who serve in this body.
Plainly, working Americans need a break. They are working harder and
they are working longer hours and they are working for less and less.
The rewards of all of this hard work just do not meet the needs of
today's families.

All the while, our country has forgotten workers struggle and they
scramble, and countless working Americans find themselves the victims
of downsizing. The stock market booms to record the highs and the
corporate executives line their pockets with outrageous compensation.
Since 1990, the salaries of corporate CEO's have surged by 9 percent
a year, yet the minimum wage is at its lowest level in purchasing power
since Dwight Eisenhower occupied the Oval Office. In fact, last year,
the median income of corporate executives in this country was $2
million--$2 million. That is over 200 times the annual salary of a
minimum wage worker.
The Nation's minimum wage today is a paltry $4.25 an hour, and I am
really proud to join my Democratic colleagues and President Clinton to
sponsor legislation to boost this wage to $5.15. That is 90 cents. A
mere 90 cents, while we have individuals in this country who are making
on average $2 million a year and some much more than that, sometimes
$40 and $50 million a year, which does not include their stock options.
We have people who serve in this body who make a very good salary,
over $130,000 a year, the people who have gotten up and who have said
that families that make $4.25 do not exist and that middle class
Americans are making $300,000 to $700,000 a year.
What are we going to do? Again, another quote from the majority
leader, the majority leader of the House of Representatives, let me
tell the Members what his quote is. His quote is: ``The minimum wage is
a very destructive thing. I will resist a minimum wage increase with
every fiber in my being.'' This from the House majority leader.
It is truly unconscionable and disingenuous for people to stand here
and say these kinds of things and purport to represent working men and
women in this country.
Mr. Speaker, I see my colleague on his feet here, the gentleman from
New York [Mr. Owens]. Please go ahead and join the debate.
Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for taking this
special order on the minimum wage.
The kind of quote that the gentlewoman just read, that ``the minimum
wage is a very destructive thing. I will resist a minimum wage increase
with every fiber in my being,'' that is House Majority Leader Dick
Armey, who is at least honest enough to say what he believes.

{time} 1915

The danger now is that we have entered a new period where there are
people now who recognize that the common sense of the American people,
as expressed through opinion polls, and I am sure people are on the
phone calling

[[Page H3708]]

their Members of Congress, common sense says that people deserve an
increase.
We are talking about pennies here, a 90 cent increase over a two year
period. But that adds up over a whole year, and there are people that
say, ``That would put some more food on my table and make it easier for
me to pay my bills, so I want the 90 cents.''
Having recognized that there is a rising tide out there among the
voters for a minimum wage increase, we have now some Members of the
Republican majority who want to pretend they are concerned about an
increase. They want to pretend, and then come with obfuscating, devious
moves, to bog down the debate.
I sent out a special alert today to all my Democratic colleagues. I
serve as the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee on Workplace,
Protections, which is responsible for the minimum wage as an issue, and
I thought that I should alert them right away as to what is coming.
I got a letter from the Republican side that showed that we are not
going to see any rapidly escalating recognition of the will of the
people resulting in a passage of the minimum wage. We are going to see
a new kind of diversionary tactic.
So I sent out this item which I called ``Special alert. Republican
wage ambush is coming. The diversionary quagmire.''

Dear Colleague: Pretending to be suddenly concerned about
livable wages for workers the Republican majority is
preparing a legislative obstacle course to forestall the
passage of meaningful legislation. We must avoid this
quagmire of quicksand.
A simple Straightforward Increase Is Best for America. Our
current position must be reaffirmed and kept focused: we
demand an immediate increase in the minimum wage. Step by
step let us go rapidly all the way to $6.25 per hour which
would bring the lowest paid person even with inflation. Step
one requires passage of a 90 cents increase to $5.15 per
hour.

No bureaucracy, government intrusion, and no cannibalizing of EITC
should be allowed to take place behind the banner of raising the
minimum wage. Hearings may be scheduled very soon to promote a
Byzantine proposal that makes a mockery of livable wage legislation. It
proposes more corporate welfare through wage subsidies for employers,
it imposes government intrusions on a scale greater than the present
socialism of the farm subsidy programs, and, finally, the Republicans
propose to raid the EITC program and siphon funds away from low income
workers into a tax cut.
Emergency action is needed. I am calling on all the Members of my
party, Democrats, to sign up to cosponsor the true minimum wage
increase bill, the Gephardt-Clay bill, H.R. 940.
Now, what am I talking about? What did I receive from the
Republicans? What did I have sent to me by somebody? It is a letter
which is sent by my chairman of the Subcommittee on Workplace
Protection, the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Ballenger], and
another member of the committee, the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr.
Hutchinson]. I am going to read portions from their letter to give them
equal time. I am quoting from the letter sent out by Mr. Ballenger and
Mr. Hutchinson. It reads as follows:

We will be introducing legislation which would accomplish
the goal of helping America's working families, while
avoiding the economic pitfalls associated with a minimum wage
increase. ``The Minimum Wage for Families Act'' would
fundamentally redesign the Earn Income Tax Credit (EITC) by:
converting the large annual lump sum EITC payments into
monthly payments so as to more practically supplement family
income; by denying credit to undocumented workers; by
eliminating credit for childless adults; by increasing the
support credit for parents; by renaming the EITC the Working
Families Support Credit.
If you believe that those people who are in need of wage
assistance are America's working families, as opposed to
teenagers employed during their summer vacation, please join
us in support of this proposal.

This is a proposal coming from the Republican side. This is the
ambush that is waiting for us before we get to that goal of a minimum
wage increase.
They propose a three-tiered minimum wage. They want individuals to be
employed at $4.25 an hour, and families with one child would get $7 an
hour, and families with two or more children would get $8 an hour.
How does it work? Employers would be able to hire as many job
applicants as possible at the current starting wage of $4.25. The
Federal Government would provide families with children a monthly cash
payment to bring these families up to the $7 or $8 level as outlined
above. The payments would be administered through the Internal Revenue
Service.
You talk about the intrusion of government into lives of Americans?
You talk about corporate welfare? Here are two blatant examples of it.
They are going to subsidize the salaries so the corporations can hire
people at $4.25 an hour. Then they are going to have the government get
involved in determining who should make $7, who should make $8, and the
Internal Revenue is going to be the administrator of all this.
The proposal is expected to be scored by the Joint Tax Committee they
say, and it is going to save, according to the Republicans at least $15
billion over six years.
Now, this is really a quagmire we are headed into. I am reminded of
the story of the young sophomore who came home from college, and he sat
down at the table with his father, who was a factory worker, and the
rest of the family, and they had a big chicken on the table they were
about to eat. The young sophomore had just taken a course in
philosophy. So he told his father, dad, there are really two chickens
on this table. I can show you starting with the right a priori
assumptions and using ontological progression and based on
epistemological reasoning, I can show you where there are two chickens
on this table.
His father looked at him for a while and listened, and suddenly
reached over and grabbed the chicken, pulled it to him, and started
carving the chicken and said, ``Look, son, if there are two chickens on
this table, I am going to carve this one, and we are going to eat this
one, and you can have the other one all by itself.''
This is what we have here. The Republicans are giving us a chicken in
a pot, a dodo in a pot, to confuse the issue, and we are going to have
long-winded sermons about how EITC is the answer to the minimum wage
problem.

Never before have I seen a proposal which so much ran against the
grain of the Republican ideology. They are going to put government in
the business of subsidizing wages and have government administering the
difference between the $4.25, determining who should get the $7 and who
should get the $8.
So I think we have a long way to go. I was getting very optimistic
myself about the rising tide of public opinion and how everybody
suddenly is responding. There are 20 Republicans proposing a bill to
increase the minimum wage by $1, not 90 cents, and I was getting
euphoric about the democratic process.
But now I see we are going to get bogged down, and only the image of
being concerned is what they are after. They want to appear to be
concerned about working Americans and play with the lives of working
Americans, and play with it with all of these highfalutin proposals to
have government put people through some kind of obstacle course or maze
and finally come out with an EITC that is going to be robbed in order
to create some more money for a tax cut.
So I agree very much with the gentlewoman, that we must keep our eyes
on the price, and focus, because the kind of straightforward statement
that Mr. Armey has made, we should be grateful for that. We are going
to have something far worse to deal with in the days ahead, the ambush
that is being prepared for the minimum wage.
Ms. DeLAURO. I want to thank my colleague from New York. You are
absolutely right. This is a move, it is called rehabilitation here, to
talk about how we are going to try to help working families. These are
from the same crowd that just not too long ago wanted to cut $23.2
million from the EITC, take 14 million families in this country and
say, and these are people working, remember, this is Earned Income Tax
Credit, not someone on welfare, Earned Income Tax Credit. They were
willing to set adrift 14 million families, not too many months ago, by
cutting that Earned Income Tax Credit.
Now, so that they can delay and they can stall and they can stonewall
on the opportunity to vote on a minimum

[[Page H3709]]

wage and to raise that minimum wage a mere $.90, they are going to come
up with all kinds of bells and whistles and tricky programs here. We
must recognize it for what it is, a stalling tactic and an
unwillingness to bring before this body the opportunity to vote on the
minimum wage yes or no, with no fancy language, just a plain and simple
vote. That is what the American public wants to hear. I thank my
colleague for joining this conversation.
Let me recognize the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone].
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me.
I just want to say I want to thank Ms. DeLauro, the gentlewoman, for
raising the issue of the minimum wage. I believe we will eventually
have a vote on the minimum wage. It is primarily, I believe, because of
your efforts to force the Republicans to give us a vote. They do not
want to do it.
As you have mentioned, they are stalling, they will continue to
stall, they are going to find every way around it. But already I notice
that because of your activities and because you have raised the issue
so often on the House floor, we have gotten to a position now where
Speaker Gingrich and some of the others have said that they may have to
or be forced to bring up a vote on the minimum wage. I think a lot of
that has to do with your efforts.
To me this is a very important issue. My own State of New Jersey
actually has a much higher minimum wage, and it has worked very well.
As you mentioned, with a minimum wage right now at $4.25 an hour, that
adds up to $8,800 a year. To me it is an absolute disgrace that someone
in America can work a 40-hour week for 52 weeks a year and only earn
$8,800. Basically I guess what they have to do is go out and get a
second job. When you are working 40 hours a week, what are you going to
do, work another job for the same amount of time, and then make only
twice that amount?
My understanding is that a minimum wage worker right now is below the
poverty level. It is just as easy to go on welfare rather than work for
the minimum wage. Here we have a Republican majority constantly
bringing up the fact, suggesting in some way part of their reasoning is
they want to get more people off the welfare roles. This belies that.
If they want to do that, they should raise the minimum wage. Otherwise
we are basically saying that a person might as well go on the dole or
get welfare from the Government.
The other thing I was going to say is that I really do not see any
one legitimately coming on the floor of this House and saying that the
minimum wage should not be raised. I think that is why you get some of
the Republican leadership like the gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay],
the majority whip, making the statement that you showed before, where
he says that fortunately such families do not really exist.
The only way out of this is to basically say there is no such person,
because if you say no such person, then you eliminate the need to raise
the minimum wage. But of course there are people, there are a lot of
people out there, who are just making minimum wage. There are a lot in
my district and they have come up to me. They are young people, they
are senior citizens, they are people from every walk of life.
Let me just make a few points, if I could. I know we do not have a
lot of time. I just think one of the most important aspects is how this
is a good thing for the economy. An increase in wages will increase
purchasing power and improve the quality of life for millions of hard
working Americans, not only the wage earners, but the local economy.
Greater purchasing power will bring more money to our local economies
and in the long run provide more stability and jobs for many small
businesses. The purchasing power of our minimum wage earners is the
lowest it has been since the early 1950's. I know you pointed that out
over and over again.
One of the things that really gets me mad is when I hear Republicans
talk about how an increase in the minimum wage will cause an increase
in inflation. You have to be kidding me. You have the nerve to tell
people who work for $4.25 an hour that they cannot have a modest 90-
cent increase in their wages because you are worried about how it will
affect inflation. I think there are a lot of things we can do in our
economy to keep inflation at reasonable levels. But to tell hard
working Americans that their below poverty levels will have that effect
on our economy and inflation is ludicrous.
Let me talk briefly about our home State of New Jersey and our
experience if I could. We have already seen the wisdom of raising our
minimum. It is now $5.05 an hour. This increase has been a complete
success. We have increased the purchasing power of our minimum wage
workers and they have used that increase to purchase more goods from
our local grocery stores and department stores.
This is not pie in the sky. There are studies that clearly show this
on a bipartisan basis that the leaders in our State legislature and our
Governor have pointed this out. It actually helped to keep our
unemployment rate from growing too high, even with the downsizing and
corporate restructuring that is so heavily affecting the State of New
Jersey. It also provided for long-term growth. We have seen in New
Jersey more jobs have been created and our economy has benefited from
the higher wages.

Let me say what I see in my own State, this is the right thing to do.
I just want to join my Democratic colleagues, and a few Republicans, I
think Ms. DeLauro has pointed out there are some Republicans that have
joined us who are going to help us in our efforts to get this passed.
This is ultimately going to benefit all Americans. I just want to thank
the gentlewoman from Connecticut again for her work on this, because I
know you do not like to take credit, but I think you have single-
handedly done the most in this House to bring this issue to the floor.
Ms. DeLAURO. Thank you very much. Before I recognize the gentleman
from California, let me just say there are going to be other people out
here tonight trying to talk about statistics and the fact that this
increase in the minimum wage is going to lose jobs.

{time} 1930

I will set the record straight. One hundred and one economists, Nobel
prize laureates in economics, public statement they signed. ``We
believe that the Federal minimum wage can be increased by a moderate
amount without significantly jeopardizing employment opportunities.''
Mr. DeLay will say that if you are on a minimum wage, you receive the
earned income tax credit in food stamps. Reminder: They wanted to cut
the earned income tax credit by $23.2 million. They will shred the Food
Stamp Program. Also the crowd that brought you a $245 billion tax break
for the wealthiest Americans at the expense of those who are today on
Medicare.
So just to set the record straight a little bit, and, also, final
point. Who are the minimum wage workers? Who are these $4.25 an hour
folks who do exist in every single Member's district? And if you close
your eyes to them, you do it at your peril in this body. Two-thirds of
minimum wage workers are adults, 60 percent are women, 40 percent are
the sole bread winners in their family.
So that what you have here is the opportunity to lift these
households up so that they can raise their families. We could lift up
300,000 families out of poverty in this country, 100,000 children who
are currently living in poverty. Again, just to set this record
straight.
I want to recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Miller, and
thank him for all of his efforts in this area.
Mr. MILLER of California. I thank the gentlewoman for taking this
time, and this very opportune time. Not only are we struggling to get a
clean vote on increasing the minimum wage for those millions of
American workers who need it to support themselves and their family,
but now we start to see the limits to which the Republicans will go to
keep us from having a clean vote.
They talk about attaching all kinds of anti-labor riders or attaching
a lot of legislation that they think will be unacceptable to us and to
the President so that he would have to veto the bill. Majority Leader
Armey has said he will resist the minimum wage increase with every
fiber in his being. Apparently, that is what is going on here.

[[Page H3710]]

But what they have done in the last couple of hours by suggesting
this proposal to take the earned income tax credit away from poor
single workers to provide for people with families with children is
incredible, because what the Republicans are saying is they are now
going to tax the poorest of workers in this country. They are going to
raise their taxes because those people will have less income after this
action than before and they are going to give it to other poor people
to increase their income.

But why are they doing it? Because they have decided they would
rather have the taxpayers in this country subsidize low-income jobs
than have the marketplace provide a livable wage.
Now, it is ludicrous on its face. As was pointed out by the gentleman
from New York, they are talking about one tax rate for workers without
children, workers with one child, with two children. We just passed the
farm bill, where we provided hundreds of millions of dollars in
subsidies to farm families. We did not distinguish between farm
families with children, farm families with one child, farm families
with two children, farm families where only one person is working with
farm without children. We based it upon their outcome and output of
that farm.
Why do we not tax rich people? Rich people with a lot of children
would be at one tax rate and single rich people would be at another tax
rate and we could give that to poor people.
What do we say about work in this country? Equal work for equal pay.
But now what the Republicans have decided is in fact it is going to be
some other classification to determine whether or not Americans will
get paid. It does not say the employer cannot provide an increase in
the minimum wage. Under this the incentive is for the employer not to
provide any increase. The Government will pick up the tab. The
Government will go into the marketplace and subsidize his employment.
In fact, we essentially have an incentive not to pay an increase in the
minimum wage, not to increase your wages. Why? Because the Government
will pick it up.
We could understand this on its face if we did not know the history
of this party, the Republicans on the other side, because not only are
they against the minimum wage, but they also have been slashing all of
the supports to those people who are working at the minimum wage and
cannot sustain a livable wage for their family even though they go to
work every day.
So what we see is there are only two places people can go. They can
either go to the Government or they can go to the marketplace. But what
the Republicans are saying is the market has no obligation to provide
you a livable wage, a wage that will support you or your family. So
what we will do is we will just have the Government subsidize those
employers who simply choose not to pay the minimum wage. This is
ludicrous. It is absolutely ludicrous.
If that is a conscious decision, and they will be back here cutting
the EITC, as they did the beginning of this year when there was no
intent that they were going to pass it on, they were simply going to
use it to balance the budget or pay for their tax cuts. We simply
cannot allow that to happen.
I think there is a fundamental decision. If you choose, if you chose
and you admit that the American economy cannot provide livable wages,
then you may be dissident. But I do not think that is what this is.
This is an effort to derail a clean vote on the minimum wage. This is
an effort to try to put something up here so people can look, sort of
like we saw today, where they put some bills so they could look like
they were friends of the environment but their voting record was
completely to the contrary. That is what this is.
It is an outrageous proposal to tell two people who work hard side-
by-side that somehow that the employer has no obligation to them to
provide an increase in their wage, if in fact they have a child or they
have more than one child, even though they are doing the same job, they
are working the same hours and working the same schedule.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. MILLER of California. I will in a moment. It is actually the
gentlewoman's time.
Mr. DREIER. The gentleman referred to me.
Mr. MILLER of California. I did not refer to you.
Mr. DREIER. Well, you pointed to me. I considered that a reference.
Mr. MILLER of California. Well.
The point is this, that what this country deserves and what its low
income wage earners deserve is they deserve a raise, they deserve the
dignity of having the ability to stay even with the increasing costs in
our economy; to be able to provide for their family; hopefully maybe
even to reach out and provide health care, which is unreachable to most
of these individuals.
But what happens? The employers in this country simply choose not to
pay that wage. Quite legitimately, there are some owners that may not
be able to, but there is no distinction in this provision. You simply
choose not to pay it and the Government comes in and picks up your
costs. There is a lot of people in the same business side-by-side in
the same towns, we know them all, people pay more than the minimum wage
and other people choose not to. People offer health care in the same
business, the other person chooses not to.
Do not offer health care, the Government will pick up the cost. Do
not offer a pension, the Government will pick up the cost. Now do not
offer a minimum wage, the Government will pick up the cost. This is
starting to sound like corporate welfare. This is starting to sound
like people who decide they are simply not going to meet their
obligations to their fellow human beings in terms of their work, their
labor, and their efforts on their behalf.
This is the suggestion that the corporate body, the working party, is
only because of the owner of that capital, or somehow that they are the
only people that contributed as opposed to the employees who work every
day for these individuals.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. MILLER of California. What we need is we need an up or down vote
on the minimum wage. We now have a majority in this House asking for
that up or down vote. We have a majority in the Senate asking for that
up or down vote, and what they ought to stop doing is throwing all of
these things to try to throw people off the track and suggest that
somehow they are there for low income working people in this country,
because the fact of the matter is they are not there for low income
working people in this country.
These people are going to work every day, and when they get done at
the end of the year after working every day, they end up poor and they
cannot provide for themselves or for others, and that simply is
unacceptable in this country. The country recognizes it is
unacceptable. Apparently only the leadership in the House of
Representatives and the Republican Party fails to recognize the need to
do this and the need to do it now and to do it in a clean fashion.
Mr. DREIER. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. MILLER of California. It is the time of the gentlewoman from
Connecticut. I want to thank the gentlewoman for raising this issue and
taking this time so that we could discuss this issue.

Mr. DREIER. Will the gentlewoman yield?
Ms. DeLAURO. I want to thank the gentleman from California for his
eloquent remarks, and for pointing out that in fact what this is about
is a basic and fundamental--these words are accurate. These words are
accurate. There are those in this body who feel the same way about
resisting a minimum wage increase with every fiber in their beings,
which is what this is about in terms of bringing up a program that will
try to borrow from an earned income tax credit, set some folks adrift.
One of the most interesting commentaries we have heard in the last
few weeks on this issue is that the Republican Presidential nominee
said recently he wanted to use the issue of the minimum wage increase
to pass some things, quote, that the Democrats might not be so crazy
about. Those kinds of threats represent political posturing that in
fact sells the American people short, as you were pointing out.
Instead of trying to stick it to Democrats, what the Gingrich-Dole
Congress

[[Page H3711]]

should be doing is to do something for working Americans, not just
talking about it when it becomes a political albatross.
Mr. DREIER. Would the gentlewoman yield?
Ms. DeLAURO. I am sorry, you will have your own time in a few
minutes.
Mr. DREIER. I do not have any time at all. My friend from California
indicated that he was going to yield.
Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, could we have regular order
here?
Ms. DeLAURO. If I can continue. Rather than trying to lend a hand----
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, may I ask, is the gentleowman not going to
yield; so should I sit down?
Mr. MILLER of California. The gentlewoman is not going to yield.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Collins of Georgia). The gentlewoman
from Connecticut controls the time.
Mr. DREIER. OK. Thank you.
Ms. DeLAURO. The Republican leadership continues to try to score
points with these political ploys.
Mr. DeLAY. Would the gentlewoman yield? She used my name. Would she
yield?
Mr. MILLER of California. If the gentlewoman would yield to me.
Ms. DeLAURO. Be happy to yield.
Mr. MILLER of California. What we have seen is time and again, time
and again, that as this issue has been discussed, they have tried to
avoid it. Now, because a few Republicans have broken ranks, a few
Republicans have even suggested they would be prepared to sign a
discharge petition, as necessary, because apparently what we will not
get is we will not get a clean vote on this matter. They will try to
trick up the bill in the Committee on Economic and Educational
Opportunities or trick it up with an amendment on the floor or in the
Committee on Rules.
We have watched this process now time and again for the last 16
months in the House of Representatives. What the committees do does not
matter, so, then, they go to Rules and they trick it up there.
The fact of the matter is this, what a majority of this House of
Representatives has now asked for is a vote on the minimum wage, to
raise it either 90 cents or to raise it a dollar. And what we now are
starting to see are a whole series of proposals suggesting what they
could do to load down that legislation so that either people who would
support the minimum wage will not be able to get a vote.

One of the things that angers the public the most is the notion of
riders, is the notion of taking subject matter A and attaching subject
matter B to it. When President Reagan stood here and said never again
would he sign a continuing resolution with all of these riders on it,
he was cheered across the Nation. So what do we see now? We see the
same old parliamentary tricks that are going to be used to try to keep
this House away from a direct up or down vote on raising the minimum
wage.
Raising the minimum wage, I think the gentlewoman said, I do not
know, that it is the lowest now that it has been in?
Ms. DeLAURO. In 40 years.
Mr. MILLER of California. In 40 years. To restore the purchasing
power to where people who have----
Mr. DREIER. Would the gentleman yield on that point?
Mr. MILLER of California. I will not yield. We have our time. We are
here to make a point.
Mr. DREIER. But I think the debate is something that is very
important here.
Ms. DeLAURO. Regular order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. DREIER. I just think it is a very important matter.
Ms. DeLAURO. Regular order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, may we have regular order?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Connecticut controls
the time.
Mr. DeLAY. Well, then, would the gentlewoman yield to me, because she
used my name on the floor?
Ms. DeLAURO. The gentleman has his own time, which is coming up, so
the answer to that question is no.
Mr. MILLER of California. The point is that what we are talking about
is taking people who have continued to lose purchasing power, who have
continued to lose their ability to support their families, to purchase
the very basics, the very basics of the American economy, health care,
put away money for a pension, put away money in savings, to be able to
have decent housing for themselves and their children.
Those basics are now not afforded to people who go to work and work 8
hours a day, work 52 weeks a year, in many instances find that they
have to try to work overtime, all of those things simply to try to
reach the poverty line. That is what we are here for and that is what
the gentlewoman has talked about restoring. That is what the President
of the United States has talked about restoring, and it is absolutely
fundamental and important that it be done.
Ms. DeLAURO. I would just make the point that the Members of this
Congress made more money when they shut down the Government during the
Christmas holidays than a minimum wage worker makes in a full year. I
think that that speaks volumes as to where some of the folks in this
body are.
One of the other comments that has been made in the last few days is
that what we need to do is to have hearings, again one more way in
which to delay the process of this.

{time} 1945

The revolutionary Republican leaders last week wanted to rewrite the
Constitution of the United States without a single hearing. We have
called for $270 billion that they have called for in cuts in Medicare
where they have had one hearing, $168 billion in cuts in Medicaid and
no hearings. We do not need any hearings. What we need to do, this is a
no-brainer. Bring up the minimum wage as this body wants, 84 percent of
the American public wants to see an increase in the minimum wage. That
is what we need to be doing, bring it up for a clean vote, a vote that
says that we recognize what hard-working Americans are doing every
single day in this country and that we need to recognize what they do
instead of just talking about it, when we are sent here by them and
that card that they give us, which allows us to vote here, which is
what we are supposed to do, is vote on the minimum wage, when there is
clamoring in this country to do that and when we have one party that
will just hold it up except for a few who split off, and I welcome
their participation, I am not sure that they are welcome in their own
ranks. But we welcome them because what we need to do here is in fact
what the public has asked us to do, is to represent their interests.
I will tell you what some of my constituents say to me these days,
why are you arguing back and forth. I will tell you that I think there
is a fundamental difference in people who stand in this well, those
people who believe we ought to have an increase in that minimum wage to
reward hard-working Americans and those who truly do not believe that
they should. There is some fear in that belief and the debate and the
issue is worth fighting about. That is what this Nation stands for,
what its values and what its priorities are. And its values have to do
with working middle-class family values of work and personal
responsibility and rewarding people to do that and not fighting it with
every fiber of their beings and not saying that these families do not
exist in this nation.
Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will
continue to yield, when we see all of this concern all of a sudden
about whether or not an increase in the minimum wage is going to
contribute to inflation, when in fact at best what we would be doing is
allowing people to partially catch up for purchasing power that they
have lost, but I do not see that echoed when we see all of these other
indices that are raising way ahead of inflation, CEO salaries,
increased values in stock, stock options provided to people, apparently
none of that contributes to inflation. The fact that people, that
people have increased their earning power thousands of times.
Ms. DeLAURO. Repealing the alternate minimum tax, which is something
that they would like to do.
Mr. MILLER of California. So these people can escape taxation; they
can have all of their deductions. But what we said was at the end of
the day, you

[[Page H3712]]

pay something for the privileges of living in America. They have tried
to repeal that. So even the wealthiest of people and corporations do
not have to pay. But all of a sudden we are worried about whether
somebody making $4.25, $4.30, $5 an hour, whether these people are
going to be those who spark inflation. I think there is something wrong
with the priorities of the people who suggest that, that somehow the
culprits in this fight, these low income people who are doing in many
instances some of the most difficult jobs in our society, in some cases
some of the dirtiest jobs, some of those thankless jobs, some of the
most tiring jobs, and we have all been in business institutions where
we have looked at people who are much older than we are, who are still
out there pounding, trying to stay equal in our society, working at the
minimum wage, working there, trying to support their own children,
trying to support themselves, and very often I am sure we have said,
boy, I am a lot more fortunate than they are. But now all of sudden
they are the bad people. They are the bad people in the war against
inflation, somebody who is trying to catch up because they have lost
their purchasing power, that that is going to ignite it.
I think the gentlewoman is right. It is fundamentally a different set
of values about human beings, about the values of their work, about the
value of their families, about the needs that these people have and the
dignity that they are entitled to when they work as hard as they do and
yet they still end up poor at the end of the year. We owe them better
than that. I thank the gentlewoman for taking this time.
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California. I
would like to really close with what a great American President
Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican President of the United States said. I
quote, ``No man can be a good citizen unless he has a wage more than
sufficient to cover, to bear cost of living so that after his day's
work is done, he will have time and energy to bear his share in the
management of the community to help in carrying the general load.''

Theodore Roosevelt, a great American President, said this. He was not
a revolutionary but he did, in fact, understand progress and what it
means.
I just finish by saying that it is time to assist working men and
women in this country. Bring the minimum wage vote to this floor. Make
it a clean vote and let people do what they sincerely believe ought to
be done as to whether or not we ought to raise or not raise the minimum
wage in this country.
In my view, it needs to be raised.
Mr. FRAZER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Congresswoman from
Connecticut for holding this very important special order on the
minimum wage.
Today, I want to join my colleagues in urging the Speaker to bring
the minimum wage increase legislation to the floor for a vote.
Approximately 30 percent of the Virgin Island work force is employed
in the service industry. A majority of these workers are adults who
support families. It is very difficult to support a family on $4.25 an
hour. The Virgin Islands is considered the American paradise, yet 36
percent of the population live below poverty.
Mr. Speaker we need a commonsense approach to solving our economic
problems. If we can give small businesses 100 percent deductibility for
health care, then we can raise the minimum wage by 90 cents.
I urge my colleagues to support raising the minimum wage, its good
for small business, its good for workers and its good for the Nation.

____________________