[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 63 (Wednesday, May 8, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S4878]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE MINIMUM WAGE

  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I want to talk about the two issues that 
are on the floor; first the minimum wage, and then the TEAM Act. I am 
willing to vote on the minimum wage at any time. I intend to vote 
against an increase in the minimum wage, and I do so for the following 
reasons.
  If we increase the minimum wage, we eliminate jobs, and we eliminate 
jobs primarily among middle-class white suburban teenagers. You may 
say, ``Well, that is fine. We do not owe these middle-class white 
suburban teenagers anything. So let us eliminate their jobs.'' I was a 
white suburban teenager in a middle-class family, and I started work at 
14 when the minimum wage was 40 cents an hour. That dates me, I 
recognize, around here. I got a nice raise when the minimum wage went 
to 75 cents an hour. I did not need the money. The money was not the 
issue. The issue was that I learned that I had to be at work on time. I 
learned that I had to put in a good time at work. Looking back on it, 
the work I did, frankly, was not significant to the corporation. They 
could have done without it. But as long as they were paying me that low 
wage, it did not hurt them that much to have me around, and I liked to 
think I at least made things a little more comfortable if not more 
profitable.
  It was the most significant learning experience of my young life. It 
was more significant than many, if not most, of the classes I took in 
high school. It was more significant in setting the pattern of my life 
and work habits in my life than the extracurricular clubs that I went 
to and the other things I was involved in. It was a tremendously 
worthwhile experience, as I am sure it is for the other middle-class 
teenagers who are experiencing their first work opportunity, a work 
opportunity that will be outlawed if we raise the minimum wage to the 
point where the employer says, ``Well, I cannot afford it anymore, and 
I will cut it off.''
  Virtually every employer who has contacted me on this issue has said, 
``If the minimum wage goes up, I will eliminate jobs.'' I say to those 
who get so excited about how low the money is, why is it more moral for 
a person to be unemployed at $5.25 an hour than it is for that person 
to be working at $4.25 an hour? Somehow, I do not see the social 
benefit in having somebody unemployed at a high rate whereas they could 
be working at a lower rate in an entry-level job.

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