[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 54 (Wednesday, April 24, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H3736]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP DENIES MINIMUM-WAGE WORKERS EVEN EXIST

  (Ms. DeLAURO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, my Republican colleagues are reaching new 
heights of desperation as they scurry to dodge a vote on raising the 
minimum wage, even though the minimum wage is at a 40-year low, even 
though a 90-cent increase would help over 10 million workers in this 
country, and even though the average minimum-wage worker brings home 
more than half of his or her family's income.
  It might be interesting to note that Members of this Congress earned 
more during the shutdown of this Government during the Christmas 
holidays than a full-time minimum-wage worker makes in an entire year. 
But despite all that, the Republican leadership will go to any length 
to kill an increase in the minimum wage. They are not even afraid of 
resorting to fantasy.
  Yesterday the House majority whip said, ``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.''
  They do not believe that people do exist on the $8,500 a year or are 
trying to exist on that amount of money. Tell it to the 300,000 
families in this country who are minimum-wage workers. Let us go to a 
clean, straight vote on raising the minimum wage.

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