[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 54 (Wednesday, April 24, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H3796]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             A MISSED OPPORTUNITY TO RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wise] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WISE. Mr. Speaker, I want to vote on the minimum wage. In this 
place, the Congress sometimes never fails to amaze me. Just when I 
think I am getting the hang of how things operate, it always pops up 
and does just the reverse. I thought that because of statements made by 
Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich in previous remarks, I thought that 
there would be a vote in this House on this House floor for raising 
minimum wage, a minimum wage that has not been raised since 1989 and is 
at its lowest point in buying power in 40 years. I thought there might 
be an opportunity, and that is what I said today in a news statement.
  I thought there would be a opportunity for the 110,000 folks in West 
Virginia that would see an increase if this minimum wage increase went 
through, 17 percent of all jobs on the payroll. I thought there would 
be a chance for them to have a little more takehome pay.
  But what I learned today is, in this joint statement of the Speaker 
and the Republican majority leader, that is not to be. There is not to 
be a vote on the minimum wage, they say; instead there is to be a 
reform package.
  I want to go through just what this reform package has in it.
  The minimum wage increase was real simple: $4.25 an hour today, which 
is what it has been since 1989, to be raised over 2 years to $5.15. 
That is all: Flat, simple, fini.
  But instead there is not to be a vote on that, says the Republican 
leadership. Instead there will be a reform package that includes 
significant family tax relief, including a $500-per-child tax credit.
  Incidentally, what they are not telling you is that one-third of low-
income children will never see any benefit from that and that in order 
to raise the money for it they are going to increase taxes on low-
income working people who presently get a tax cut in the earned income 
credit.
  The second part of the reform, so-called reform, package, is quote, 
``reforming the Earned Income Tax Credit.'' Well, what that means is 
that in order to give a little more to some, they are going to take 
from others in the same status. And, incidentally, that earned income 
tax credit applies to persons earning somewhere in the neighborhood of 
less than $26,000.

  They say that they are going to enact reforms to protect employer 
pensions. Let me tell you about the last reform that they enacted in 
the reconciliation bill. That was: Did they reform the pension? What 
they did was make it easier for corporations to go in and raid the 
pension for certain types of purposes. And so what kind of reform is 
this if you make it easier to take the pension?
  Third: Another one is improvements, that is what this package says, 
in the labor laws to allow workers to choose flextime. You're darn 
right you can choose flextime. The last reform that got in the 
Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities is to do away with 
overtime for over 8 hours' work or over 40 hours in a week. What kind 
of reform is that? You get to continue earning the old minimum wage and 
be denied overtime at the same time.
  The list goes on.
  Mr. Speaker, what the American people want, the overwhelming majority 
have said clearly: We want a vote on the increase in the minimum wage. 
Do not load it up. Do not try to clog it up. Do not love it to death by 
making it a Christmas tree. Do not add a bunch of riders. Vote on 
raising it from $4.25 to $5.15 over a 2-year period.
  I know that some say, well, this just goes to students. Well, 
actually it does not. About half the people are under the age of 25 
that would receive a benefit of this, and two-thirds are under the age 
of 30, and 58 percent are single women, women who are single heads of 
household.
  But as someone who, along with millions of others in this country, 
worked his way through college at the minimum wage, I can tell you that 
students need that increase as much as anyone else. Whether it is 
carrying bedpans, as I did for 3 years in a hospital, or carrying a 
tray up two flights of stairs in a restaurant, students are trying to 
work their way through, young people are trying to get ahead, and the 
minimum wage is their only way.
  I learned a long time ago that as a student and as a young person, as 
someone working for minimum wage, there was only one collective 
bargaining agent for me. There were not any labor unions; nobody else 
was speaking for me. The only way I would ever see an increase was when 
Congress raised it.

  And for those who are afraid that business is going to dry up and go 
away, the studies indicate that is not so.
  But there has not been a minimum wage increase since 1989. Has anyone 
noticed the Big Mac price going down? How about that pizza that you 
order from the fast-food catering firm or when you go into any 
restaurant? You notice those prices going down? Of course you have not.
  The fact of the matter is that the minimum wage being raised by this 
relatively low amount does not influence prices to that degree. And so 
the fact is, the point is, are we going to give people a working wage? 
For the 112,000 in West Virginia, 17 percent of our work force who are 
trying to make it the way the systems tells them to do, working at the 
minimum wage, they demand, and a lot of other citizens demand, a vote 
on the minimum wage increase.

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