[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.

                          ____________________