[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 74 (Thursday, May 23, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H5503-H5504]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               EMPLOYEE COMMUTING FLEXIBILITY ACT OF 1996

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The unfinished business is the further 
consideration of the bill (H.R. 1227) to amend the Portal-to-Portal Act 
of 1947 relating to the payment of wages to employees who use employer 
owned vehicles.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
Wednesday, May 22, 1996, 1 hour of debate remains on the bill. The 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling] and the gentleman from 
Missouri [Mr. Clay] will each control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling].
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Since our gentle debate has strayed from the base bill, which is what 
we were supposed to be debating for these 90 minutes, I suppose I will 
join the crew and stray also.
  I would say that from what I have heard thus far, it would appear 
that we are following the big lie phenomena: ``If you tell the big lie 
enough times, you will eventually begin to believe it yourself.'' And 
then, ``If you tell it some more, you eventually get others to believe 
it.''
  If we have agreed, or do by the time the day is over, that we should 
increase the minimum wage, then it seems to me it is time to turn our 
attention to the whole idea of job loss and what that problem presents 
to the most vulnerable, the unskilled, the poorly educated, the teens, 
and the senior citizens.
  Now, that gets us to the big lie issue, because we will hear over and 
over again that raising the minimum wage does not cause unemployment or 
does not remove the possibility that people with few skills and little 
education have when they try to get a job. But yet we are told by the 
Congressional Budget Office that a 90-cent increase could produce 
unemployment losses from 100,000 to 500,000 people.
  A 1995 study by the University of Michigan and an economist there 
revealed that New Jersey's minimum wage increase led to a 4.6-percent 
reduction in employment.
  A 1995 report from the University of Chicago and Texas A&M University 
found that with the last increase in the minimum wage, employment of 
teenage males fell 5 percent while employment of teenage women fell 7 
percent.
  In 1978, the Minimum Wage Study Commission determined that for every 
10 percent increase in the minimum wage, it results in a 1- to 3-
percent job loss for teenagers.
  A 1995 study by economists from Ohio University found a link between 
the

[[Page H5504]]

minimum wage increases and the recessions of 1990-91 and 1974-75. 
Further, the study determined that higher unemployment rates during the 
recession of 1990-91 and 1974-75 explained why, over the past two 
decades, the poverty rate rose in the year after the completion of each 
minimum wage increase.
  So, again, I think it is time to stop indicating that there are no 
problems for thousands of people in this country when we talk about a 
minimum wage increase.
  So what do we do about that? Well, we do the same thing we have done 
every time we have had a minimum wage increase, we go back and do what 
we can possibly do to make sure that those, in this case, 100,000 to 
500,000, are not without employment. And so we look at those ways, as 
we did in the past.
  In the past we had a small business exemption. Well, when we talk 
about a small business exemption we have to understand that every other 
major workplace policy statute contains an exemption for our Nation's 
smallest business. Consider the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It exempts 
businesses with less than 15 employees. The Americans With Disabilities 
Act exempts businesses with less than 15 employees. The Family and 
Medical Leave Act exempts those with less than 50 employees.
  The overwhelming majority of businesses who have $500,000 or less in 
gross annual sales have 10 or less employees. They are a ma-and-pa 
program. Virtually every Democrat Member of the House have supported 
exemptions for our Nation's smallest businesses from a wide variety of 
labor statutes. Remember ADA, FMLA and the Civil Rights Act?

  Again, providing an exemption for small business is not a new 
concept, many of its opponents today have supported that concept in the 
past. So we look at that as one possibility to help those who may be 
unemployed because of the increase.
  We continue the tip credit provision which is in the present law; we 
continue the present laws that relate to computer professionals; and we 
reinstitute the opportunity wage, but this time we limit it to 90 days; 
calendar days. We do not have two periods of 60 working days.
  So I would hope as we proceed today that we spend a great deal of 
time talking about facts rather than fantasies, and by the time we are 
finished, hopefully, we will have helped all Americans, including that 
100,000 to 500,000 that could find themselves in real difficulty if we 
do not make some of the decisions that we have made in the past when 
dealing with minimum wage increases.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
New York [Mr. Schumer].
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Missouri for 
yielding me this time, and I rise to oppose strongly the Goodling 
amendment and to talk about its effect on the underlying bill.
  Today we were supposed to vote on a bill to increase the minimum wage 
by 90 cents and to pay working families a living wage. We were going to 
raise the minimum wage from its lowest level in 40 years. And what do 
the American people wake to this morning? The Goodling surprise, an 
amendment which says that any business with annual sales of under 
$500,000 is exempted from the Fair Labor Standards Act.
  In other words, if an individual happens to be one of the 10.5 
million Americans who work in these small businesses, they do not have 
to get paid overtime; they do not earn the minimum wage. Not the old 
one or the new one.
  In my region, the New York City metropolitan area, over 130,000 
businesses will be exempt from fair labor laws and 200,000 workers will 
be left unprotected.
  The minimum wage vote should be called the Gingrich two-step. Take 
one step forward by raising the minimum wage for some people, take two 
giant steps back by exempting millions from overtime and minimum wage 
laws all together.
  Why must the GOP continue to gratuitously slap American workers? Why 
did they break their promise to offer a clean minimum wage increase? 
The only answer must be, as the gentleman from Texas, Majority Leader 
Dick Armey, stated, that they oppose the minimum wage with every fiber 
in their being, and they will raise it but they will exact their pound 
of flesh from American workers.
  This mean-spirited assault on those who work every day and barely eke 
out a living wage is horrid. These people work in textiles, in retail, 
on farms. They work hard, they deserve a raise, not to be punished 
because the gentleman from Georgia, Newt Gingrich, will do anything to 
keep minimum wage from happening.
  Now, if the Goodling amendment passes, the President, thankfully, has 
said he will veto the bill, and I am sure there is a little nefarious 
plan out here: Goodling will pass, the President vetoes the bill, 
nothing happens, and the Republicans say we have tried.
  But let me assure my coleagues that from this side of the aisle, 
until there is a minimum wage increase for all Americans, not one out 
of two or one out of three, we will be on this floor every week and 
every month to make sure that the minimum wage passes. The Republicans 
cannot and will not avoid a clean minimum wage increase with this kind 
of cheap trick.

  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I would remind the gentleman from New York 
that unless we make some changes, New York will face a loss of 29,000 
jobs.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas, 
Congressman Hutchinson.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Speaker, I just wonder where all of this passion 
was 2 years ago when Democrats controlled this Chamber, controlled the 
other Chamber and controlled the White House. Not once, not once, was a 
minimum wage proposal brought up before the full House, before a 
committee, or before a subcommittee. What we are seeing now is 
rhetoric. What we are seeing is election year politics.
  I rise to oppose increasing the minimum wage, not because I do not 
want to help working Americans, but because I do want to help them. We 
know, we know, that raising the minimum wage will kill jobs. It will 
take opportunities away from those who we claim we want to help the 
most.
  I point to Melody Rane and her family who own two Burger King 
franchises in Eureka, CA. A minimum wage hike will force her to lay off 
four full-time and eight part-time workers at her stores. She will also 
be forced to raise her prices, which will hurt everyone, especially the 
working poor, whom we claim that we have compassion for.
  According to Melody, raising the minimum wage will hurt teens more 
than anyone else she employs because she will no longer be able to 
provide entry-level jobs for them. The young people that she has hired 
have not stayed on at minimum wage for very long. They learn their jobs 
and they move up quickly. All her managers started at minimum wage and 
her top manager today has been with them since he was 16 years old.
  We know that raising the minimum wage is a job killer on the most 
vulnerable people in our society. A 1993 study by the American 
Economics Association of over 22,000 economists found that 77 percent 
of them said that if we raise the minimum wage, there will be 
significant job loss in our economy.
  We know it is inflationary, because if they do not lay them off, they 
have to raise the price of their goods and services, and that 
disproportionately impacts poor people who are going to have to pay 
more for those products that they buy.
  Raising the minimum wage is the poorest way to target working poor 
people. The last time we raised the minimum wage, in 1991, only 17 
percent of the new benefits went to people living below the poverty 
line. Most of them are teenagers living at home with mom and dad. Only 
17 percent went to those who are working poor.
  Now, I suggest to my colleagues that there is a better way. If we 
really care about working poor people, there is a better way to do it. 
I propose that we reform and we refocus and we retarget the earned 
income tax credit, a program that has enjoyed support from the 1970's 
on from both sides of the aisle.

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