[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 85 (Wednesday, June 18, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1244-E1245]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       REPUBLICAN CHICKEN LITTLES

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 18, 1997

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, people talk frequently in 
this House about the need for accountability, but it is too often a 
case of Members here demanding that others be held accountable. A 
little self-accountability would go a very long way in this 
institution, and the recent article by Mark Shields on the minimum wage 
in the Saturday, June 14 issue of the Washington Post does a good deal 
to hold Members of Congress accountable for things they have said.
  As Mr. Shields points out, when we debated the minimum wage in the 
previous Congress, many Republican Members predicted that an increase 
in the minimum wage would be an economic and social disaster. They 
could hardly have been more wrong. As Mr. Shields shows, while most 
Republicans opposed the increase in minimum wage and many of the 
Republican leaders predicted that increasing it would be disastrous, 
Republicans were wrong.
  As Mr. Shields notes, directly contrary to the Republican 
predictions, which apparently grew organically out of their view of 
economic reality, today, with the increased minimum wage in effect for 
8\1/2\ months, we see ``no adverse effect on the employment of young 
workers

[[Page E1245]]

* * * bigger paychecks and * * * a healthier national economy * * *.'' 
Of course the minimum wage did not cause all of this to happen, 
although it has played a significant role in the bigger paycheck part 
of this for people at the low end of the wage scale. But the fact that 
we are enjoying this continued economic boom, with increased employment 
at the lowest end of the wage scale, directly contradicts what the 
Republican Party made its official doctrine during the debate on the 
minimum wage, and Mr. Shields is right to document the glaring 
disparity between what they said and reality.

                       The GOP's Chicken Littles

                           (By Mark Shields)

       When it comes to economic forecasting, conservative 
     Republicans on Capitol Hill give a new respectability to 
     astrology.
       Consider the matter of the federal minimum wage. Last 
     summer Congress voted to increase the minimum wage, effective 
     last Oct. 1, from $4.25 an hour to $4.75 (it will rise again 
     next Sept. 1 to $5.15 an hour). Democrats almost unanimously 
     favored the increase, and Republicans almost unanimously 
     opposed it.
       But many Republicans did more than merely oppose the hike, 
     they were prophets of doom and gloom: Chicken Little and 
     Gloomy Gus rolled up into a single morose caucus.
       House Republican Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was his usual 
     direct self in panning the increase: ``The Democrat party is 
     to job creation what Dr. Kevorkian is to health care; a job-
     killer cloaked in kindness.'' A little less restrained was 
     Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who accused House Democrats, whom 
     he referred to in floor debate as the ``comrades on the other 
     side,'' of failing to understand that a minimum-wage increase 
     would destroy jobs, adding, ``The folks over there are simply 
     economically ignorant.''
       But the Cassandra award belongs to Rep. John Shadegg (R-
     Ariz.), who declared: ``Raising the minimum wage will put one 
     out of every four minority workers between the ages of 17 and 
     24 who are out of school and working out of work.''
       What was being voted on then was a modest proposal that 
     simply would guarantee that a worker in America who labors 40 
     hours a week, 52 weeks a year, would earn about what a member 
     of Congress is paid every three weeks.
       Republicans were wrong. The economy, almost eight months 
     after the minimum-wage increase became law, is much better, 
     not worse. The nation's unemployment is at its lowest point 
     in 24 years. The proportion of the population with jobs is 
     the highest in American history. The stock market continues 
     to set new altitude records.
       But what about the dire GOP predictions concerning lost 
     jobs? Minimum-wage opponents emphasized that job losses would 
     be heavy in the eating and drinking industry, where nearly 
     one out of three private-sector minimum-wage earners is 
     employed. In the first four months after the minimum wage was 
     raised, employment in eating and drinking businesses grew at 
     a rate four times faster than it had in the year before the 
     increase.
       And wait, there is still more good news for the workers 
     this hike was intended to help. Teenage unemployment is 
     measurably lower than where it stood just last September, 
     before the wage increase. In a soon-to-be-released study, the 
     Economic Policy Institute finds that not only has 
     unemployment for teenagers and young adults not been 
     adversely affected in the first eight months following the 
     wage increase but that the benefits have primarily gone to 
     low-income working families.
       Minimum-wage workers, contradicting the myths spun by foes 
     of the federal wage law, are not typically the spoiled 
     stepson of the investment banker just picking up gas money 
     for his BMW convertible. Instead, 35 percent of the workers 
     who benefited from the increase are the sole breadwiners in 
     their families. Three out of five of them are women. Seven 
     out of 10 are 20 or older.
       That's why it's encouraging to learn that the increase has 
     had its biggest impact upon the earnings of black and 
     Hispanic teens. The benefits of the wage increase have gone 
     overwhelmingly to low-income working families. Nearly 56 
     percent of the families that have benefited from the wage 
     increase are in the bottom 40 percent of American income.
       With no adverse effect on the employment of young workers, 
     with bigger paychecks and with a healthier national economy, 
     about all that's left to say to those pessimistic, it's-five-
     minutes-to-midnight conservatives is, ``Cheer up, fellas, 
     eventually things will get worse.''

     

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