[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 58 (Wednesday, May 1, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H4310]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  RAISING MINIMUM WAGE WILL COST JOBS

  (Mr. HUTCHINSON asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Speaker, let me just say in response to the 
gentleman who just spoke, Republicans are in favor of helping the 
working poor, but we are in favor of doing it in a way that will truly 
lift their take-home pay, to lift their wages. Raising the minimum wage 
will not have that effect.
  The fact is economists, 90 percent of them, agree that raising the 
minimum wage will, in fact, cost jobs; it will cost the jobs of those 
that we most want to help, the low-skilled worker. The last time we 
raised the minimum wage, in 1991, only 17 percent of the new benefits 
went to people living under the poverty level. That is not the 
effective way of helping those who are the working poor.
  Raising the minimum wage will not only cost jobs, it will be 
inflationary, costing those whom we want to help more in their goods 
and services that they need to purchase. It is the wrong way to help 
those who are the working poor. There is a better way of doing it. We 
can do it.
  I suspect the gentleman who just spoke supported the increased 
funding for EITC 2 years ago, and there is a better way of doing it, as 
we take that proposal that has had the support of Republicans and 
Democrats and focusing it upon those who are truly in need, the working 
poor, the families with children. We want to help them, but we want to 
help them in a way that will not hurt the economy and take jobs away 
from the most needy.

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