[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 54 (Wednesday, April 24, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H3794-H3795]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              REPUBLICAN PLAN FOR RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Lucas of Oklahoma). Under a previous 
order of the House, the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller] is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, today we have learned that not 
only are the Republicans opposed to the minimum wage, but their 
leadership in a joint statement issued today said that they will simply 
not allow the minimum wage to come to the floor of the House. Instead 
they will have a substitute package that prevents, prevents millions of 
Americans from ever getting an increase in the minimum wage.
  Mr. Speaker, if you are a student who is working while you are going 
to college to help pay for your college education, under their plan you 
will never get an increase in the minimum wage. If you are a single 
person who is working at the minimum wage, today you are working 8 
hours a day, you are working 40 hours a week, and you are still ending 
up poor under their plan, you will never get an increase in the minimum 
wage.
  If you are a working person with a child or working person with two 
children, you will get an increase but you will not get it from the 
people you are working for. You will get it from the taxpayers, because 
the Republicans have decided, rather than ask the employers of this 
country to pay a livable wage, to pay an increase in the minimum wage, 
what they are going to do is ask the taxpayers to subsidize those jobs 
for those individuals who are working.
  Mind you, today for an individual working at the minimum wage, a 
single parent with one child, the taxpayers are already paying $175 a 
month in AFDC payments, $28 a month in food stamps, $179 in EITC, and 
they are losing $56 on Social Security. We are already subsidizing low 
wage jobs in America. Rather than have the marketplace, which so often 
we hear people pledge their allegiance to, rather than

[[Page H3795]]

have the marketplace provide livable wages, rather than have McDonald's 
or Burger King increase the minimum wage, what they have decided is 
they are going to provide a government subsidy to those employers.
  What that means is never again will McDonald's hire other people 
other than a single worker because those workers will never be entitled 
to an increase in the minimum wage. If they hire somebody that happens 
to have a child, they will know that whatever increases in living 
standards those people acquire, it will be acquired from the taxpayers, 
not from their hard work, not from the sweat of their brow and not 
certainly from their employers.
  This is a complete capitulation to the special interests, the 
restaurant association, the fast food industries, and so many others 
opposed to an increase in the minimum wage. But now we find out that 
the Republican leadership in the joint statement of the Speaker and the 
House majority leader who said they will not bring the minimum wage to 
the floor of the House of Representatives. They have said that they are 
also going to go on the attack against the 8-hour day, the 40-hour work 
week, the Fair Labor Standards Act that protects people that, if you 
work more than 8 hours a day, if you work more than 40 hours a week, 
you are entitled to overtime compensation for that work.
  What they are going to do is get rid of that standard. They have 
already done it in the Committee on Economic and Educational 
Opportunities where they have voted out legislation to deny people the 
guarantees of the 8-hour day, the 40-hour work week, and people ought 
to understand this.
  Mr. Speaker, they have also decided that they say they are going to 
try and protect individuals' pensions. This comes from the same people 
who just a few months ago allowed people to raid the pension funds of 
employees. How are they going to provide this increase in the living 
standards of people who work at the minimum wage? They are going to 
increase the taxes on low income single working people, on low income 
students who happen to be single. They are going to tax those 
individuals, take away their earned income tax credit and give it to 
poor working people, poor working people who happen to have children.
  So we are going to tax the poorest people in the country who are 
working every day. We are going to tax them and give that to other 
working poor people who happen to have children. We are going to do 
that under the Republican plan rather than ask the employers to provide 
an increase of 90 cents in the minimum wage over 2 years or $1, as some 
of our Republican colleagues have suggested, over 2 years.
  This is a massive subsidy to employers who choose not to pay the 
minimum wage. The employer need not show that he cannot pay the minimum 
wage, that he cannot afford to pay the minimum wage, that their 
business would go on the rocks. There is no showing at all. You simply 
do not pay the minimum wage, and the taxpayers come in and subsidize 
your place of employment. You simply choose not to provide a livable 
wage to a single person, and that person has no right to any further 
remuneration because of their work or because of a loss of purchasing 
power that we have seen people who are currently at the minimum wage.
  So what we have is we had a promise by Majority Leader Armey that he 
would fight the minimum wage with every fiber of his being. And now 
that we see he is carrying out that promise and that promise is in his 
joint statement that the minimum wage will not come to the floor of the 
House, they will not allow us to vote on it.
  Mr. speaker, we are entitled to that vote. We should have a clean 
vote up or down on the minimum wage and give the American hard-working 
people the minimum wage that they need. They need a raise.

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