[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 127 (Tuesday, September 22, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10679-S10692]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    NONPARTISAN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to express the 
view that Congress should make our inquiry into possible impeachment of 
President Clinton as bipartisan as possible, nonpartisan, fair, and 
judicious. There is an abundance of evidence that the American people 
deplore excessive partisanship in general and oppose any kind of 
partisanship where we are dealing with a matter which is judicial or 
quasi-judicial.
  I recall an admonition from my father years ago. When in a 
partnership situation he said, ``Arlen, don't make it 50/50; give 60 
percent. It will look like 50 percent to your partner. If you give 50 
percent, it will look like 40 percent.'' That bit of advice which my 
father gave me as to a partnership arrangement, I think, is applicable 
to relationships or arrangements of many kinds.
  I think it is very important that there be a real effort on the part 
of Republicans, because we Republicans are in control, to not press for 
every bit of advantage. I believe that the proceedings in the House 
were off to a good start when there was a vote of 363-33 to release the 
Starr report, with about two-thirds of the Democrats voting in favor of 
a release of the report. It seems to me where we have a proceeding like 
impeachment, which is really judicial, that it ought to be bipartisan 
or nonpartisan.
  With respect to the playing of the tapes of President Clinton, it has 
been my preference that the approach be somewhat different from that 
which was undertaken by the House of Representatives. The playing of 
those tapes, I think, would have been subject to no criticism at all 
had the House moved ahead with an impeachment inquiry, either in a 
preliminary stage or after the signing in a more formalistic sense to 
have impeachment hearings. Then it would have been in the regular 
course of business in regular order to see the tape of the President so 
that the Members of the House could make an evaluation of the evidence 
as to what to do next.
  Then where those hearings would be public, with the availability of 
the President's tape, his deposition before the grand jury would have 
come into the public domain in a matter of due course, and then as a 
regular proceeding with the hearings of the House of Representatives so 
that the House would have obviated the controversy and the concern of 
whether there was an inappropriate release of the President's tapes. 
Once the hearings start, even in a preliminary sense, the House Members 
have an obligation to see what the evidence is.
  Similarly, with the release of other evidence, such as the testimony 
of Ms. Monica Lewinsky yesterday, that testimony is appropriate in 
regular course, but there is bound to be some concern raised when it is 
released en masse and not as a part of a regular proceeding by the 
House of Representatives.
  From my days as district attorney of Philadelphia, which was a quasi-
judicial position, a district attorney--a public prosecutor--is part 
advocate and part judge. The expression is made as to the district 
attorney being a quasi-judicial official. I found it very important in 
the cases which I tried personally and in the administration of the 
office to exercise great care to be fair with the defense, both in 
terms of proceedings generally and in the presentation of evidence at 
trial.
  The juries in a criminal case, like public opinion generally, have a 
sense as to fairness, and it builds up, I found, the credibility of the 
prosecutor not to be looking for every slight advantage in the course 
of either investigation or trial. The impeachment proceedings, it seems 
to me, are really totally judicial in nature. The articles of 
impeachment have been analogized to a bill of indictment, but I think 
they are not really a bill of indictment in a criminal proceeding; or 
it may be argued that a bill of indictment before a grand jury is 
judicial in nature.
  However, I hope that when we in the Congress vote in this body, when 
responsibilities come to the Senate, or in the other body, the House of 
Representatives, that there will be an approach which is bipartisan and 
nonpartisan. We are proceeding in a matter of the utmost, utmost 
gravity, the potential for impeachment of the President of the United 
States, and I think the American people will demand and are entitled to 
that kind of bipartisanship.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of the time that I 
have on my side.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Massachusetts is recognized to offer a second-degree amendment relative 
to the minimum wage, on which there shall be 2 hours of debate equally 
divided.


                           Amendment No. 3540

(Purpose: To amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to increase the 
                         Federal minimum wage)

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3540.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy) proposes an 
     amendment numbered 3540.

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       At the appropriate place, insert the following:

     SEC.  . FAIR MINIMUM WAGE.

       (a) Short Title.--This section may be cited as the ``Fair 
     Minimum Wage Act of 1998''.
       (b) Minimum Wage Increase.--
       (1) Wage.--Paragraph (1) of section 6(a) of the Fair Labor 
     Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 206(a)(1)) is amended to 
     read as follows:
       ``(1) except as otherwise provided in this section, not 
     less than--
       ``(A) $5.65 an hour during the year beginning on January 1, 
     1999; and
       ``(B) $6.15 an hour during the year beginning on January 1, 
     2000.''.
       (2) Effective date.--The amendment made by paragraph (1) 
     takes effect on January 1, 1999.

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I understand that there is a time 
allocation, 1 hour for those who support this amendment, and 1 hour in 
opposition. Am I correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.

[[Page S10680]]

  Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I yield myself 12 minutes.
  Mr. President, I will briefly review the bidding about where we are 
with regard to the minimum wage.
  Since the end of World War II, the minimum wage has increased seven 
different times. President Eisenhower signed a bill for an increase of 
the minimum wage. President Kennedy did as well, as did President 
Johnson. President Nixon supported an increase in the minimum wage. 
President Carter supported an increase in the minimum wage. President 
Bush supported an increase, and President Clinton has supported it as 
well.
  In the postwar period, if we look at where the economy went in the 
immediate 20 years after World War II, the economy grew across the 
board. The percent of increase for those at the lower income level rose 
just as well as those at the upper level. There was very, very little 
disparity. If you look at the difference quintiles, from the period of 
the postwar--1945 really up to about 1970--there was virtual growth 
together.
  During this period of time, we found that Republicans and Democrats 
alike supported the increase in the minimum wage on a very basic and 
fundamental principle; that is, if Americans are going to work, they 
ought to be able to have a livable wage--they should not be in poverty. 
Men and women who want to work 40 hours a week 52 weeks a year and play 
by the rules ought to have a livable wage. That concept has been 
supported by Republicans and Democrats alike.
  All we are asking today is whether we are going to continue that 
basic, fundamental vote of fairness and justice in our country. That is 
the issue. It is as plain and simple as that.
  There are reasonable questions that we have to ask ourselves. The 
first is, What is going to be the impact on the state of our economy?
  We have the greatest economic growth and price stability in the 
history of the Nation. We have seen untold fortunes made during the 
period of the last 6 years, but not for those at the lower end of the 
economic ladder, not for those who are the minimum-wage workers. Their 
actual purchasing power has been reduced. It is surprising, most 
Americans think, that everyone has not moved up together. Many have 
moved up the economic ladder, but not those at the lower part of the 
economic ladder.
  All we are trying to do is to say to those hard-working Americans at 
a time when we have record unemployment, the lowest inflation that we 
have had at any time (except one of the seven times where we raised the 
minimum wage in the postwar period)--the lowest rate of inflation--
that, given our economic situation, we can make sure and we can afford 
for those working Americans a livable wage for themselves and for the 
members of their family. That is the very simple issue.
  It is fair to look at what has happened with the last increases in 
the minimum wage to see what the impact has been of those increases on 
the rate of unemployment and the rate of inflation.
  We find, as I have demonstrated and put in the Record repeatedly, and 
will not take the time unless challenged on those issues here today, 
that effectively we have seen virtually no adverse impact in terms of 
our economy since the last two increases--absolutely none. The economy 
is stronger, and stronger than ever. We saw in 1997 more than 1,200,000 
jobs created in the small business industry.
  We have heard from the restaurant association that since the last 
increase in the minimum wage their employment has grown by 240,000 
jobs. They have not been disadvantaged. If you are looking at a growth 
industry, according to the Labor Department, it is in the restaurant 
industry.
  Mr. President, you can see what I have just stated reflected on this 
chart. This chart reflects clearly the fact that in constant dollars 
the minimum wage now is at one of its lower levels. Over the period 
from the mid 1950s, all the way through the mid-1980s, a 30-year period 
where we have Republican and Democratic Presidents alike, we have 
minimum wage and purchasing power that would be even above what this 
proposal is that is offered today: 50 cents next year, 50 cents the 
following year. Even if we have those two increases, we will still be 
below the 30-year average under Republicans and Democrats.
  That is all. We are not trying to say we are going to the highest 
level that we have ever had, even though we have the best economy. All 
we are saying is let us put them in the realm of the 30-year period for 
these working families in America.
  A great deal is said around here about the importance of work. These 
are working families trying to provide for their children.
  Who are these workers?
  These workers are child care workers and attendants. Beatrice 
Stanford of Wilmington, DE, is a low-wage grandmother who has worked at 
the YMCA Child Care Center for 4 years, earns $5.75 an hour, and is the 
sole supporter for her teenage son and daughter and two grandchildren. 
Beatrice's children have worked from time to time, but she now calls 
that her biggest mistake. Her daughter fell behind in school because of 
all the hours she was putting in at work. She needed summer school, but 
she couldn't afford the $300 for the course. Instead, she had to do a 
correspondence course that cost $164. She made up the course but lost a 
year. Beatrice finds it a struggle just to pay the rent. She can't 
afford a car, so she takes a bus to work and catches a ride to the 
supermarket.
  These are child care workers--the faces of those who are working for 
the minimum wage. Beatrice Stanford, a grandmother trying to provide 
for her children and not being able to make ends meet.
  Mr. President, there are other workers like Renda DeJohnette who 
provides home health care in Los Angeles. Child care workers, home 
health care workers, teachers' aides--these are all the people who make 
up the minimum wage.
  Renda DeJohnette provides home health care. Renda works in a county 
program to help senior citizens and the disabled to remain in their 
homes and avoid institutionalization. Renda is a single mother with two 
teenage children. She earns $5.75 an hour washing clothes, preparing 
meals, cleaning houses and finds it hard to make ends meet. A low 
minimum wage increase would allow her to put food on the table and pay 
all of her bills.
  The list goes on.
  There is Marcus Reynolds of Lynn, MA. To understand the minimum wage 
from both sides of the paycheck, for 20 years he earned the minimum 
wage cleaning offices, making beds in hotels, stocking shelves, and 
lifting heavy packages in stores.
  Often he worked two jobs, sometimes three. He says, ``No matter how 
many jobs I worked, how little time I slept, the minimum wage was not 
enough to make ends meet. Even when I was basically just working and 
sleeping, providing for food and rent and transportation was more than 
a challenge. It was often a struggle.'' Now he owns a very small 
sandwich shop. He pays his entry-level workers $6 an hour. He says, ``I 
can't afford to pay them less.'' He respects them as workers and as 
people, and as he puts it, ``What kind of family value is it to pay 
someone supporting a family a wage that is below poverty?''
  Mr. President, these are the people we are talking about. We are 
talking about teacher's aides who are working with our children. We are 
talking about child care helpers. We see the turnover that is taking 
place in the Head Start Program, and we are all concerned about that 
because we know the importance of consistency of care in terms of 
looking after our children.
  One of the principal reasons for this turnover is that we are paying 
the child care assistants in these kinds of settings the minimum wage, 
and they just cannot make ends meet. We are talking about those health 
workers who are working with our parents to try to keep them at home, 
to help and assist them so they are not institutionalized. They are the 
helpers and assistants in the nursing homes looking after our parents. 
They are the people who take care of the buildings which house 
America's corporations, working long, hard hours at night.
  When we asked minimum wage workers what the impact was when they saw 
an increase in the minimum wage last time, the answer that so many of 
them gave was amazing: ``You know, Senator, what the impact is going to 
be

[[Page S10681]]

when we raise the minimum wage. We are only going to have to work two 
jobs instead of three.'' Only two jobs instead of three. ``We might get 
a chance to see our children more often. We might be able to go to 
teachers' meetings. We might be able to spend some time with our child 
helping with some homework.''
  That is the difference in terms of any kind of increase in the 
minimum wage. That is what we are talking about. That is what we are 
talking about at a time when we have the strongest economy in the 
history of this country and at a time when we have hard-working 
Americans who are prepared to do the work.
  How much time do I have remaining, Mr. President?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 12 minutes requested by the Senator have 
expired.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 3 more minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this chart here says it: ``The minimum 
wage is not a livable wage.'' We are talking about a livable wage here 
in the United States of America. These are the average figures for a 
family. The monthly minimum wage budget includes what is necessary for 
a family of three. Food on the table, $348; housing, $582; 
transportation, $145; and what remains is $131. That does not include 
child care, where the national average in terms of one child would be 
$333 or health care where the average is $49 or clothing where the 
average is $63, which comes to $445. You have to squeeze three items, 
$445, into the remaining of $131.
  The question is, how many times is a parent going to serve peanut 
butter to a child in order to save the $10, $15 or $20 so they can look 
after health care needs? How many times are they not going to pay their 
utilities in order to be able to look after a child? This is what we 
are talking about--hard-working Americans who deserve a living wage. 
This issue is the same as the last 70 years when we have debated it in 
the Senate. But we have come together in decency and fairness at 
important times for working Americans.
  Finally, Mr. President, just last year we had an increase in our own 
minimum wage. Members of this body got $3,100. That is $1.50 an hour. 
That is the increase every Member of this Senate received--$1.50 an 
hour in 1 year. We are looking at child care workers, health care 
workers, teacher's aides getting 50 cents next year and 50 cents the 
following year. If it was fair enough for the Members of the Senate, it 
ought to be fair enough for those hard-working Americans who are trying 
to provide for their families. That is the issue--fundamental fairness 
to working Americans. Hopefully, we will be successful.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah is recognized.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I have very much enjoyed listening to my 
colleague once again on this very important issue, which seems to come 
back on an annual basis. The ink is barely dry on the announcement for 
last year's increase in the minimum wage and the Senator from 
Massachusetts is back asking for another serious, mandatory wage hike.
  The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, and those who support 
this concept, believes that an increase in the minimum wage is the 
quick, painless way to help the disadvantaged in our society. They 
believe that a minimum wage hike is absolutely costless, and they 
believe that it has no adverse impact whatsoever. I can only wonder, 
then, why they have not offered an amendment raising the minimum wage 
to $15 an hour or $20 or $25 or $30, because if it has no impact and it 
really is going to benefit people, why not do that. In fact, if raising 
Senators' salaries $1.50 an hour over the last year is right, why not 
give everybody whatever the amount of money the Senators make--
$100,000, $130,000, or whatever it is--to even things up and make 
everybody equal in our society? I am sure the Senator is not arguing 
that so I do not mean to raise that type of ridiculous argument.
  Frankly, if raising the minimum wage was all it took to raise people 
out of poverty--or to make life better for the working poor--I would 
vote for it.
  But, I believe the proponents of this amendment and of the underlying 
concept have greatly oversimplified the issue. And, I believe they know 
they have oversimplified it.


                           employment impact

  I will admit to my colleagues that the most elusive aspect of the 
economic debate on the minimum wage is an estimate of its impact on 
employment. Study after study has been done to quantify the employment 
effects of an increase in the wage floor. And, economists have 
disagreed about the severity of the employment impact.
  There is, however, overwhelming consensus that there is indeed an 
adverse effect on employment. Three-quarters of the 22,000 members of 
the American Economic Association agree that minimum wage hikes have a 
disemployment effect that stifles employment opportunities for low-
skilled workers.
  In 1981, the Minimum Wage Study Commission, which was formed under 
the Carter administration, concluded that for every 10 percent increase 
in the minimum wage, the disemployment effect was between 100,000 to 
300,000 jobs.
  Disemployment means jobs not only eliminated, but also jobs that are 
never created in the first place. For example, if a retail store 
planned to hire five additional workers and, as a result of the higher 
labor costs, only hired two, the disemployment effect is three jobs.
  For the sake of argument, let's take the more conservative boundary 
of this range of impact. The Kennedy-Wellstone amendment proposes a 
19.4 percent increase in the minimum wage over two years.
  That means that, using the most conservative multiplier, nearly 
200,000 entry level jobs would be lost.
  Now, Mr. President, let's line up 10 applicants for entry-level jobs. 
Which two of them are most likely to lose out at this higher minimum 
wage level? The suburban teenager working to pay the insurance on his 
car? The spouse working to put a little extra money into the household 
budget? The senior citizen who is supplementing his retirement income 
and trying to stay active? Are they the people who would lose out?
  Or, would it be the new immigrant still learning a new language? 
Perhaps the young woman just out of a drug rehabilitation program, or a 
young man recently paroled from prison. Perhaps those who will miss out 
are high school drop outs.
  Michgan State University economist David Neumark suggests that the 
employment effects of a higher minimum wage are actually most acute on 
certain subgroups. In his paper ``The Effects of Minimum Wages on 
Teenage Employment, Enrollment, and Idleness,'' Neumark finds that 
higher minimum wages act as an incentive for teenagers to seek 
employment and that those with more experience and greater skills crowd 
out those with fewer skills. Those who are displaced find themselves 
``idle,'' i.e., neither enrolled in school nor employed.
  I certainly do not consider this a positive effect of the minimum 
wage increase. But, it gets worse.
  The probability that a black or Hispanic teenager will be displaced 
is five times greater than for the general population of teenagers.
  But, perhaps the perverse impact of minimum wage increases is summed 
up best by two of President Clinton's own appointees to the Federal 
Reserve Board, William Baumol and Alan Blinder: ``The primary 
consequence of the minimum wage law is not an increase in the income of 
the least skilled workers, but a restriction on their employment 
opportunities.'' [Baumol and Blinder, cited in Glassman, Washington 
Post, 4/9/96]
  This is pretty serious stuff. The ones who really get hurt are the 
ones who need the help the most.
  The long and the short of it is simply that you cannot mandate an 
increase in the price of entry level or unskilled labor--which is 
exactly what the statutory minimum wage is--without reducing the demand 
for that labor.
  The term ``labor costs'' is complicated. It includes lots of things: 
wages, insurance, FICA taxes, unemployment taxes, training, uniforms or 
other expenses. But, for now, let's just say it's wages and FICA taxes.
  Some may be tempted to say that another dollar an hour is no big deal 
for an employer. Well, let's take a hypothetical employer in my home 
state of Utah. Let's see how big of a deal it is.

[[Page S10682]]

  Is it only $1 for the ABC Company in Salt Lake City, UT? ``Hey, it's 
only $1, what's the big deal?'' they say. Assume you are a business 
owner with 25 part-time employees who work 30 hours a week. How much 
would a minimum wage hike cost you? You fill in the blanks.
  First year, 50 cents times 25 employees times 30 hours per week times 
52 weeks per year equals $19,500 in the first year.
  The second year, $1 times 25 employees time 30 hours per week times 
52 weeks per year equals $39,000 in the second year. Add in the 
additional FICA and other taxes--I'll bet you forgot about those--that 
is $5,265, just use 9 percent, if you will, to keep it easy.
  And the grand total is $63,765. Think about that. This is the average 
small business. The average small business owner takes home less than 
$25,000 per year. So where is the money going to come from? Where is 
the money going to come from?
  If you stop and think about it, under the Kennedy-Wellstone 
amendment, the 2-year increase in labor costs would be more than 
$63,000. Actually the figure is $63,765. That is 2\1/2\ times what a 
typical small business owner takes home.
  The median take-home for small business owners, as I have said, is 
$25,000. That's based on the National Federation of Independent 
Businesses, the representative of the small business people in this 
country, and that is using CPS data.
  Exactly what would you do, Mr. President, if you were this small 
business owner faced with a dollar per hour mandatory increase in your 
labor costs?
  The answer should be obvious. As one small business owner noted:

       Unfortunately, many entry-level jobs are being phased out 
     as employment costs grow faster than productivity. In that 
     situation, employers are pressured to replace marginal 
     employees with self-service or automation or to eliminate the 
     service altogether. . . .

  I should mention that the small business owner I just cited is former 
Senator George McGovern.
  His eyes were opened once he left the distinguished U.S. Senate and 
went into a small business himself and found out it is pretty tough to 
be in business. There are a lot of demands on you. That was Senator 
George McGovern, who I believe voted for every minimum wage increase 
the whole time he was in the U.S. Senate. I give him credit for being 
willing to call it the way it is.
  Harriet F. Cane, owner of the Sweet Life restaurant in Marietta, 
Georgia, after the last minimum wage increase reports that she went 
from 16 employees to 9. She voiced her frustration in the Wall Street 
Journal:

       Money for minimum wage increases has to come from 
     somewhere. . . . If you pass another increase in the minimum 
     wage, you can tell the teenagers and working mothers I employ 
     why they no longer have jobs. Then try asking for their 
     votes.

  And, I also share Senator McGovern's concerns about one other aspect 
of the minimum wage. He goes on to ask:

       When these jobs disappear, where will young people and 
     those with minimal skills get a start in learning the 
     ``invisible curriculum'' we all learn on the jobs?

  Senator McGovern is right. Entry level jobs are only the first run of 
the ladder. How many of us are today doing the same job we did as 
teenagers? Quite obviously none of us in Congress. And, I would venture 
very few outside of Congress.
  Ed Rensi started in 1965 in Columbus, Ohio, at 85 cents an hour. 
Today, he's the president and CEO of McDonald's. [Shlaes, WSJ, 8/15/95] 
Just think about that.
  James Glassman, writing in the Washington Post, quotes this finding 
by David Macpherson, professor of economics at Florida State 
University: ``A year after having been observed working at the minimum 
wage of $4.25, the average wage for these workers was $6.08 an hour.'' 
[Glassman, Washington Post; 4/9/96] That is a $1.83 increase--43 
percent.
  Amity Shales, writing in the Wall Street Journal, cites a 1992 study 
in the Industrial Relations and Labor Review that stated that 63 
percent of minimum wage workers earn higher wages within 12 months and 
that the increases average 20 percent. [Shlaes, WSJ, 8/15/95]
  So, let me get the proponents' argument straight: Someone who has a 
minimum wage job is going to be better off with a 19.4 percent increase 
under the Kennedy-Wellstone amendment--if he or she doesn't lose his 
job or have his hours reduced--than under current law where there is a 
greater probability of keeping the job and getting a 20 percent or 
greater raise in their wages?
  I find this logic terribly twisted.
  It is a great myth that everyone currently earning the minimum wage 
gets `stuck'' in a minimum wage job. The fact is that people cycle 
through these jobs regularly. They get raises; they get more education; 
they learn a new skill; they prove themselves reliable; they move on 
and up.
  And, I'll say one more thing about jobs at the bottom. I am proud 
that I worked my way through school. I even worked as a janitor. Some 
of my colleagues might poo-poo that experience. Well, I am proud of it. 
Not only was I a darn good janitor, but I met good, decent people doing 
it as well, and I have to tell you I made 65 cents an hour.
  I like to think maybe I have progressed in life and that little bit 
of training I got as a janitor helped me to appreciate what working is. 
It helped me to put myself through school. It helped me to have the 
dignity that comes from working, the discipline that I learned from 
having to meet hours, meet work schedules, and meet work expectations. 
All of that was pretty darned important.
  One thing I learned was that there is no such thing as a menial job--
only people who do not understand the importance of any job performed 
well. And maybe that's one thing wrong with our society today--but 
that's a subject for another day.


                           Winners and Losers

  First jobs are for learning as well as earning. If we continue to 
raise the bar for entry, how many adults will we have who have never 
worked? How many teenagers and young adults who need a chance are not 
going to get one?
  According to the conservative estimate, at least two out of every 10. 
My colleagues on the other side may not think that is too high a price 
to pay in order to benefit the other eight. But, considering the 
evidence that hiking the minimum wage is a lousy way to help the 
working poor, I can't agree--I cannot agree, to make it even more 
clear.
  It is true that some workers will reap the benefit of the increase. 
Some workers will get a $40 a week raise. But, by mandating wage 
increases, two out of 10 entry-level job seekers won't have a job at 
all--very likely those who need a chance the most.
  Senator Kennedy has gone to great lengths to disassociate this 
minimum wage increase from organized labor's legislative wish list. He 
has tried to convince us that this is a women's issue and a children's 
issue. He has tried to tell us that we should enact this 19.4 percent 
increase in order to lift the poor and working poor out of poverty.
  The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts is attempting to give 
this perennially bad idea a Cinderella-like transformation. I must 
point out to my friend and colleague that there is no way this pumpkin 
is going to turn into a handsome coach.
  Let's look at the demographics of who will be helped and who will be 
hurt by the loss of job opportunities.
  There are twice as many minimum wage earners in families earning more 
than $25,000 per year--that is 51 percent of them--than in families 
earning less than $12,500 per year. That is 25 percent of them. And, 
one of five lives in a family earning $50,000 or more. [Deavers; 
Employment Policy Foundation, 3/5/98 briefing, p. 21]
  Nearly 43 percent of all minimum wage earners are teenagers and young 
adults living at home; 16.5 percent are spouses of other earners; 22.5 
percent are not heads of household. Only about 20 percent are heads of 
household supporting dependents.
  In Utah, the distribution is even more lopsided.
  Who really benefits from the minimum wage hike in Utah? The average 
family income of Utah employees who will benefit from President 
Clinton's proposed minimum wage hike is $37,816. According to the U.S. 
Census Bureau data, fully 89 percent of Utah employees whose wages will 
be increased by President Clinton's proposed minimum wage hike either 
live with their parents or another relative, live alone, or

[[Page S10683]]

have a working spouse. Just 11 percent of them are sole earners in 
families with children, and each of these sole earners has access to 
supplemental income through the earned income tax credit.
  As you can see, Mr. President, only 11 percent are single parent with 
kids or single earner in couple with kids. Stop and think about it.
  That is important to look at. Our State is maybe a little bit better 
than the national average where it is 22 percent. That 11 percent is 
doubled to 22 percent. But it still means that 78 percent of the people 
are those who need that entry-level job, that first job, that 
opportunity of starting on the ladder climbing higher.
  Of course, we should be concerned that certain families are 
struggling with minimum wage incomes. There should be no insinuation 
that those of us who oppose this amendment do not care about these 
struggling families.


                   minimum wages can't fight poverty

  But, we need to understand the limits of a minimum wage increase to 
reach these families with any tangible benefits.
  The minimum wage increase cannot be targeted only to certain workers. 
We cannot say that Mrs. Jones who is trying to raise two kids on the 
minimum wage gets the increase, but Mrs. Brown who is working to 
supplement her husband's earnings does not.
  The reality is that those who are not poor are more likely to get 
raises and those whose skills do not justify the higher wage will be 
out of jobs.
  Study after study has concluded that raising the minimum wage is an 
ineffective means of helping those who are disadvantaged.
  David Neumark of Michigan State and William Wascher of the Federal 
Reserve Board concluded that:

       On balance, we find no compelling evidence supporting the 
     view that minimum wages help in the fight against poverty. 
     Rather, because not only the wage gains but the disemployment 
     effects of minimum wage increases are concentrated among low-
     income families, the various trade-offs created by minimum 
     wage increases more closely resemble income redistribution 
     among low-income families than income redistribution from 
     high- to low-income families. Given these findings, it is 
     difficult to make a distributional or equity argument for 
     minimum wages. [Neumark & Wascher, ``Do Minimum Wages Fight 
     Poverty?'' NBER Paper, August 1997].

  Peter Brandon, of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the 
University of Wisconsin has found that ``welfare mothers in states that 
raised their minimum wage remained on public assistance 44 percent 
longer than their peers in states where the minimum wage remained 
unchanged.'' [Brandon, cited in Understanding the Minimum Wage, 1995]
  A conference paper prepared by Robert V. Burkhauser (Syracuse 
University), Kenneth A. Crouch (University of Connecticut), and David 
C. Wittenburg (The Lewin Group) reports the results of a simulation 
model on the effects of the 1990-1991 minimum wage increase. After 
holding the employment variable constant (which was not the actual 
effect), ``only 19.3 percent of the increase in the wage bill caused by 
that minimum wage increase went to poor families. This is less than the 
22 percent of workers whose wages were increased by the minimum wage 
increase who live in poor families.'' [Burkhauser, Crouch, Wittenburg, 
``The Behavioral and Redistributional Consequences of Minimum Wage 
Hikes: Evidence from the 1990s;'' AEI Conference, May 4, 1998, p. 5]

  Yes, Mr. President, raising the minimum wage sounds like an easy way 
to help those who are working but still struggling to find their way 
out of poverty. It is no wonder that, lacking the facts, the American 
people would support this.
  But, upon examination, using minimum wage increases to alleviate 
poverty is like trying to shoot a fly off an elephant--and we are not 
even aiming at the fly but at the entire elephant. The amendment 
proposed by Senator Kennedy and Senator Wellstone is not directed to 
workers who are poor, but rather at the entire universe of minimum wage 
workers. And, even former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has 
acknowledged that most minimum wage workers are not poor.


                               conclusion

  The idea that there is no adverse impact from a mandatory increase in 
the cost of hiring workers is delusional.
  But, what is worse, is that this adverse impact is for nothing. And, 
those very individuals who need entry level jobs the most are the ones 
most likely to be displaced by the increased competition for those 
jobs.
  This proposal, like the emperor who has no clothes, is specious--it 
is still specious, and I haven't even touched on inflationary or 
geographic inequities. I would need another hour to do that.
  It is disappointing that some of my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle remain so enamored with this discredited dinosaur of a labor 
policy. Even the Democratic Leadership Council, citing findings of the 
Progressive Policy Institute, has repudiated minimum wage hikes, 
correctly claiming that they are counterproductive.
  Hiking the minimum wage is not the only way to assist working 
Americans and those struggling to make ends meet. Let's work on some of 
those ideas. Personally, I would like to raise people's paychecks by 
cutting their taxes. That is probably a far better way of doing it than 
doing it this way. That would increase their paychecks without the risk 
they might lose their jobs, which is a big risk that will happen with 
this giant albatross.
  I think we can work together on education. We passed the A+ Education 
bill earlier this year with bipartisan support. Education--or the lack 
of it--is the single biggest factor in determining an individual's 
earning capacity.
  Let's tackle illiteracy and other root causes of low-skills and low-
earnings potential. But, for Heaven's sake, let's recognize the minimum 
wage as the mirage it really is.
  I urge my colleagues to defeat the Kennedy-Wellstone amendment. It 
deserves to be defeated, and it is time we start approaching these 
problems in a better way, in a way that really will help people, 
especially those who are at the lowest level of poverty in this 
country. I yield the floor.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ashcroft). Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield 7 minutes to the Senator from 
Rhode Island.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of Senator 
Kennedy's and Senator Wellstone's proposal to raise the minimum wage. 
There, in my view, is a very compelling reason why we must do this and 
we must do it today. That reason, simply stated, is that if you are a 
full-time worker, a head of household, a single head of household and a 
family of three, you will make $10,700 a year. That is $2,900 below the 
poverty level. Today, the minimum wage law in the United States 
guarantees to so many people only one thing: that they will still be in 
poverty. We can do much better than that, and we should do much better 
than that.
  There have been discussions about the employment effects of raising 
the minimum wage. Studies have been presented; statistics have been 
presented. Let's look clearly at what has happened in the last two 
episodes in which we raised the minimum wage.
  Back in October of 1996, the minimum wage was increased to $4.75. And 
what happened to unemployment? It fell; it was in a cyclical pattern, 
but it fell. Again, in September of 1997, we raised the minimum wage to 
$5.15, and once again unemployment fell.
  This legislation is not a job killer. This legislation does not deny 
opportunities to work for anyone. What it does is it gives people more 
money in their paycheck, gives them more opportunities to provide for 
their families, gives them a bigger share in this country's economy. 
That is why we need to do it.
  There are others who argue, ``Well, those are just general 
statistics.'' The real problem with the minimum wage increase is it 
affects some discrete subgroups like teenagers. If you look at the 
record of teen unemployment, age 16 to 19, once again the same pattern 
emerges. The minimum wage was raised in October of 1996--it is a 
cyclical process--and unemployment declined. Again, in September of 
1997, with some cyclical variation, a declining curve, unemployment in 
this category also falls. So the arguments against the minimum wage 
because it kills employment just do not hold water based upon the most 
recent experiences.

[[Page S10684]]

  Then there is the argument that small businesses will invariably and 
automatically react to an increase by cutting back on their employment. 
There has been a recent study by two researchers from the Jerome Levy 
Economic Institute at Bard College. And 90 percent of the small 
businesses they surveyed indicated that the 1996 minimum wage increase 
did not change their hiring decisions. Their hiring decisions were 
based upon the demands in their marketplace for their products, driven 
by a very strong economy. Moreover, 75 percent of these individuals 
surveyed said that a further increase to $6 would also not influence 
their decisions about hiring.
  So small business is not reacting to this proposed minimum wage 
increase by saying, ``We are going to cut off employment.'' What this 
does is give hard-working Americans a chance to put more money in their 
paycheck to provide more opportunities for their families.
  We have also heard arguments on the floor today that, ``Well, the 
minimum wage is benefiting not just the poorest people, just teenagers 
who work, but maybe spouses who work and their husbands or wives are 
employed in more lucrative jobs.''
  First of all, the reality of the minimum wage is that 74 percent of 
the wage earners are over 20, so the vast majority are not teenagers. 
And 40 percent are the family's sole breadwinner. They have people who 
depend upon them, depend upon them bringing in a living wage. And 63 
percent are women; and 50 percent of the minimum wage earners are in 
the lowest 40 percent of earners in the United States. This does, in 
fact, provide a very positive impact on the opportunities for low-
income Americans.
  There is another argument here, too, that I think we have to present. 
Last Congress, many of us joined together to pass significant welfare 
reform, in fact, directing people off welfare into the workforce; and 
it is an irony, at best, moving people from welfare into poverty-level 
wages--indeed, below poverty-level wages. To make this experiment in 
welfare reform truly workable, we have to ensure that when people leave 
welfare they get adequate pay. And the minimum wage increase will help 
do that.
  Also, it seems to me illogical that in every other sphere of economic 
endeavor raising someone's pay is seen as a good thing, not a bad 
thing, that most of our activities in the workplace are designed to get 
increases in pay. In fact, very few people would think, ``I'm not going 
to ask for an increase in pay. It might curtail my opportunities to 
work.'' Because the reality, as demonstrated by my colleague, just to 
survive, to put food on the table, clothe children, to provide minimal 
care to their families, requires an increase in the minimum wage.
  I think there is another argument that has to be stressed. We are 
coming into some rocky economic times in the United States because of 
the turmoil throughout the world. Demand for American goods overseas is 
faltering. How do we keep our economy going? One way to do that is to 
give the American people more purchasing power. Increasing the minimum 
wage does that for the very lowest income Americans, those people who 
go into the Kmarts, go into the Wal-Marts, to buy products. In fact, 
they are typically the types of individual households that, because of 
the demands on them, are constantly buying products for their children, 
buying goods and services. This will also help, I think, in a broader 
economic sense.
  So for all these reasons--basic justice and fairness, to keep our 
economy moving, to recognize that there are so many good reasons to do 
this--it does not affect employment dramatically but what it does 
affect is the ability of working families, people who work very hard to 
provide for their families and maybe provide a little extra. That, to 
me, is why we are all here.
  I strongly support the efforts of Senator Kennedy, the efforts of 
Senator Wellstone, and their strong commitment to ensure that the 
benefits of this economy are shared not by just those who are affluent 
but are shared by the broadest segments of American society, 
particularly by those who struggle each and every day under 
circumstances, frankly, that few of us have had to endure, to be good 
citizens, to work hard, and to get something a little bit more for 
their families.

  I hope, in that spirit, and recognition of those facts, that we 
strongly support this amendment.
  I yield back my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. I yield 12 minutes to the distinguished Senator from 
Wyoming.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.
  Mr. ENZI. I thank the President and the Senator from Utah.
  I rise today to share my thoughts about another proposed increase in 
the minimum wage. Having been a small business owner for 27 years, I 
want to be sure that my concerns regarding the full economic impact 
that that Federal one-size-fits-all mandate can have on rural States 
like Wyoming are made known. This complex economic issue demands 
careful consideration.
  I want to say right up front, I favor an increase for all wages. But 
that increase should be sparked by a strong free market economy, not by 
a Federal mandate that would be detrimental to small businesses and to 
the existence of hundreds of minimum-wage-paying jobs in Wyoming that 
are already few in number.
  I travel throughout Wyoming almost every weekend. I regularly hold 
town meetings and attend ice cream socials as a way of listening to my 
constituents' concerns. I want to point out, Wyoming residents are 
thick-skinned individuals and they are not shy about sharing opinions--
they show up and they share.
  I was not surprised to hear from them that another increase in the 
minimum wage could close small businesses and eliminate jobs--two 
things that are already tough to come by in Wyoming.
  As a former shoestore owner, I have always felt that the minimum wage 
represented a starting wage--better referred to as an entry-level wage. 
I hear people trying to equate it with a ``living wage.'' It is a 
minimum wage. It is an entry-level wage.
  An entry-level wage in Wyoming changes quickly as the individual 
worker gains experience and improves his or her skills in the 
workplace. Almost two out of three workers who start at the entry-level 
wage earn a higher wage within 6 months--more skill, more money. Every 
job works that way. There are just different entry-level rates--more 
skill, more money. Kids with no skills have to gain experience in the 
workplace if they are to understand why hard work is a fundamental step 
to life's success.
  Moreover, college students seeking part-time jobs to help supplement 
their education are going to find it even more difficult to obtain work 
when the number of these available jobs is cut.
  Are the economic realities that impact these kids being considered by 
this amendment? I will gladly welcome any explanation based on 
Wyoming's labor market.
  Only 480,000 people live in Wyoming, fewer than any other State in 
this country. That is not bad; we have plenty of elbowroom. Wyoming 
still remains a State of high altitude and low multitude dominated by 
miles and miles of miles and miles. We can still call the wrong number 
and know who we are talking to. But my State's labor market has 
produced a set of statistics that worry us. Wyoming ranks 50th in new 
economic growth, 50th in the creation of new jobs, and 50th in 
technical industries. That is not a change. We lack the population 
needed to lure high-turnover jobs. We lack critical mass where there is 
enough population for businesses to feed on each other.
  While other States are celebrating budget surpluses, Wyoming 
politicians argue over every available penny, knowing that a $200 
million shortfall is expected within the next 5 years. To put that in 
perspective, a 1 cent statewide sales tax only raised $50 million a 
year for the State. Having served in the State and the legislature for 
10 years, I have dealt with this reality firsthand.
  Folks need to understand why another increase in the minimum wage 
impacts States like Wyoming differently than Connecticut or 
Massachusetts. The Nation's economy may be strong, but my State hasn't 
shared

[[Page S10685]]

that fortune. It takes a long time for rural States with sparse 
populations to benefit from these trends. I am not going to buy into 
the notion that another minimum wage hike is necessary just because the 
Nation's economy is doing well. There is more to it than that.
  Despite Wyoming's economic portfolio, the absence of intrusive State 
taxes ensures that family incomes go a long way. It would go even 
further if I could say the same for Federal taxes--however, we will 
save that debate for another time. Wyoming residents pay no State 
income tax, a five-cents-on-the-dollar sales tax, bare-bones ``sin'' 
taxes and fuel taxes, and some of the lowest property taxes in the 
country. In fact, a Wyoming family of four making $50,000 per year pays 
about $2,500 total in State and local taxes--including sales tax. In 
Connecticut, that same family of four pays $10,000. That is an 
incredible difference. Connecticut folks pay four times as much in 
local and State taxes. Labor Secretary Herman stated in a letter to 
Chairman Jeffords of the Senate Labor Committee describing how another 
minimum wage increase would make an ``enormous difference in the lives 
of workers and their families'' and that it would ``mean an additional 
$2,000 a year 
* * *'' I guess if I had to pay over $10,000 each year just in State 
income tax, a Federal minimum wage hike might not sound too bad. 
However, those folks should be screaming for lower taxes--not higher 
wages! Those East Coast families have to make up to four times as much 
to cover State and local taxes.
  Wyoming's low taxes give the dollar plenty of mileage, despite lower 
wages. Even where the availability of housing is scarce, it's still 
affordable. My youngest daughter now attends the University of Wyoming 
in Laramie where rental property is tough to come by. Still, a person 
can rent a single-family home there for less than $400 per moth. A one-
bedroom apartment in a modest Washington neighborhood often exceeds 
$1,000 per month. That is a monumental difference. Similar to taxes, 
East Coast workers need to make up to 2\1/2\ times as much to cover 
housing. I made a few phone calls to some local ``fast food'' 
restaurants and I learned that each of them started their employees 
above the minimum wage. I was quoted wages starting from $5.25 per hour 
at the Burger King in Falls Church to $6.00 per hour at an Alexandria 
McDonald's. The labor market and cost of living determine these pay 
rates, not Federal minimum wage laws. But in Wyoming, where these same 
factors are much different, the wages are dictated entirely from 
Washington where folks pay 4 times as much for State and local taxes 
and 2\1/2\ times as much for housing. To no surprise, the Burger King 
in Casper, the McDonald's in Cheyenne, the Taco Bell in Laramie and the 
McDonald's in Sheridan all start their employees at this entry-level 
wage. Remember, those who show some interest don't stay at that entry-
level wage long. Remember, those who show some interest don't stay at 
the entry-wage level. Another mandated, one-size-fits-all minimum wage 
hike may sound like a good deal for Wyoming's entry-level employees, 
but it isn't Each time the minimum wage is increased, these jobs that 
put money in the pockets of kids--and sometimes senior citizens, too--
become extinct.
  That is not just Wyoming. This chart shows that although the growth 
and the overall economy did accelerate, it agrees with the other 
charts. It accelerated in 1996 and 1997. The job growth at eating and 
drinking places fell sharply after the wage hikes. In 1995, job growth 
in the whole economy was 2 percent; eating establishments, 3.9. In 
1996, after the wage increase goes into effect, the economy grows by 
2.8 percent, and the kids working in restaurants only have a growth of 
2.2 percent.
  After outpacing overall employment growth each year in the 1990s, job 
growth at eating and drinking places fell sharply in 1996 and 1997. 
This chart shows the total employment and the eating and drinking 
employment. So both of them show the same trends.
  Another chart shows what the new job opportunities at eating places 
were in 1994 and 1995 versus 1996 and 1997. The rate of growth allowed 
for 532,800 jobs in 1994 and 1995. Then the minimum wage kicked into 
effect. The growth was only 281,600 jobs; we lost over 250,000 jobs in 
that market alone. That is a quarter of a million kids who didn't get a 
job.
  Despite Wyoming's sparse population, the number of jobs are even 
fewer. The complaint I hear from my constituents is not about low 
paying wages, but the lack of jobs. Folks in my State are tired of 
seeing their kids leave Wyoming to attend college elsewhere simply 
because there are not enough part-time and full-time entry-level jobs 
to help them get a little experience and pay for their education while 
they go to college. Since the bulk of jobs in Wyoming are provided by 
small businesses, another increase in the minimum wage will only 
increase that disparity. Another minimum wage increase would hike all 
wages. I'm in favor of all wages being increased, but not at the cost 
of critical jobs. If the entry-level wages have to go up, the workers 
earning slightly more than the minimum wage would have to earn more 
too. This isn't just a debate about entry-level wages. Not only would 
small businesses have to pay its employees a higher wage, but the price 
of products that the business purchases at wholesale costs and sells at 
retail prices will undoubtedly have to go up--causing customers to 
purchase less as a result. Lower sales means less jobs. Downsizing 
would result. If that fails, the business folds--often quickly by 
Wyoming's standards. This is basic macroeconomics and a simple 
explanation on why Federal mandates can hurt the very people they are 
intended to help. Unfortunately, people don't work at the Federal 
level. They work at the local level--even for those who work for the 
Federal Government.

  Not only have I heard the argument that our economy won't be hurt by 
another increase since it is already so strong, but the argument is 
also portrayed to sound as if another increase is long overdue. Over 
the past 10 years, the Federal Government has walked all over States 
like Wyoming by subjecting them to national, one-size-fits-all 
mandates, all kinds. In 1989, the Congress and President Bush 
negotiated an agreement that provided for three increases in the 
minimum wage over a 12 month period. By April 1, 1991, the minimum wage 
rose from $3.35 per hour since 1981 to $4.25 per hour.
  Congress didn't stop there, however. On May 22, 1996, the House 
passed a tax bill to assist small businesses, entitled the Small 
Business Job Protection Act of 1996. On May 23, the very next day, the 
House passed another bill that increased the minimum wage from $4.25 an 
hour to $5.15 an hour over two years. These two bills were combined 
into one package and sent to the Senate where it passed. I was still a 
small business owner in Wyoming at that time, but I was still appalled 
by the action Congress and this President took under the guise of 
``small business protection.''
  That takes us to today. Now the Senate is talking about another 
increase in the minimum wage--$1 over the next two years. I am a member 
of the Senate Labor Committee that has jurisdiction over this matter. 
The committee has not had one, single hearing discussing the impacts of 
another minimum wage increase. The committee has not considered any 
legislation that would increase the minimum wage. Rather than discuss 
the impacts that the pending legislation would have on States like 
Wyoming, the committee process was shunned. Instead, we're now debating 
this issue as a matter of election year theatrics. Politics does not 
constitute sound policy and this attempt to increase the minimum wage 
again simply confirms that notion.
  I am not interested in playing games with the minimum wage. This is a 
complex, economic issue that must be carefully considered. If the 
minimum wage goes up, then so does the poverty level. But wages are 
already going up because of full employment. A quick downturn in the 
economy would escalate unemployment. This would be a lose-lose 
situation. Phony wage hikes drive prices up--so we trick the worker 
into thinking he or she is getting more--but the bills still can't be 
paid at the end of the month. Government dabbling in a free economy is 
phony economics.
  Congress has a duty to weed out political schemes from impacting our 
Nation's market and labor force. States like Wyoming deserve better 
than that and I'm not going to sit idly by and allow my constituents' 
concerns to be silenced.

[[Page S10686]]

  This matter should receive a fair hearing and additional 
consideration by the respective committees and must not be excluded. 
This is the last-minute election year pitch; nothing more. I strongly 
oppose this attempt to pass a minimum wage increase, and I ask my 
colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I am pleased to be on the floor with my 
colleague, Senator Kennedy, in support of this amendment.
  Let me say to my colleagues on the other side--perhaps we can have 
some discussion and debate about this--that I find it very interesting 
what is going on here. If I am wrong, I am sure my colleagues will try 
to prove me wrong. I don't actually think they can prove me wrong. Here 
is what is going on.
  The reason that the vast majority of the people in our country have 
made it crystal clear that they are for an increase in the minimum 
wage, that they think to go from $5.15 cents and hour to $6.15 over a 
2-year period is imminently reasonable is because they think this is a 
family-value issue. This occurred the last time we went through this 
debate and this time as well. Most people in Minnesota and most people 
in the United States of America believe that it is our responsibility 
as Senators and as Democrats and Republicans to create a climate 
whereby they can do their best by their kids, because when they do 
their best by their kids, they do their best by our country. One of the 
ways they can do best by their kids is to have a decent job and a 
decent wage so they can support their families. That is what this 
debate is all about.
  Mr. President, we have these arguments trotted out here. I do not 
like where they come from. We have the same old song. I understand that 
for a variety of different reasons some of my colleagues are opposed to 
raising the minimum wage. I understand this may be a difficult vote. So 
we have to figure out other arguments to make. I don't think it looks 
good.
  I am going to sort of break from the traditional boundaries of debate 
and say this: I don't think it looks good.
  In this past year we gave ourselves a cost of living raise of $1.50 
an hour on top of giving ourselves, several years ago, a $30,000 
increase. We in the Senate went from $100,000 to $130,000-plus.
  At the time, I had colleagues come up to me and say, ``We need to do 
it. We have two places. We have children. They are in college. It is 
tough. It is very difficult to make ends meet.'' So we voted ourselves 
a $30,000 increase, and then, on top of that, we vote ourselves a 
$1.50-an-hour cost of living increase. Yet, we say it is just 
outrageous to increase the minimum wage for people who are working 
full-time, playing by the rules of the game, 52 weeks a year, 40 hours 
a week, and are making poverty wages. People who work full-time ought 
not to be poor in America. They ought to be able to make a decent wage 
and support their children. $100,000 to $130,000 for us is fine, but to 
raise the minimum wage $1 over 2 years is not fine.
  That is a tough argument to make for people in the country, because 
most people in the country believe that it is our job to make sure that 
when people play by the rules of the game and work hard that they earn 
a decent living. Most people in this country believe that those people 
ought to have that chance. Thus, the arguments come out.
  And so we heard that we are going to lose all these jobs, but that 
didn't happen. Here are the figures from the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics. I am not bringing out any particular conservative group or 
liberal group. I am just going by BLS data. When we went from $4.25 to 
$4.75 over this first year, 394,000 new jobs were added to the economy. 
Then when we went from $4.75 to $5.15, 517,000 new jobs were added to 
the economy.
  When I am finished I look forward to my colleagues refuting this; to 
just explain away the data. Sometimes we don't know what we don't want 
to know. But these are the facts from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
Where is the evidence that this increase in the minimum wage that 
helped so many people in our country--10 million-plus people, 140,000 
people in Minnesota, helped people do better by themselves and better 
by their kids--where is the evidence that it led to a decrease in jobs?
  In the State of Wyoming, since the Federal minimum wage was 
increased, unemployment in Wyoming dropped by 8 percent. Where is the 
evidence that the increases in the minimum wage lead to a sharp drop in 
the number of jobs in the State of Wyoming? It is just the opposite. 
According to BLS, 15 percent of the workforce in Wyoming will benefit 
from our increase--30,000 workers.
  So I don't understand this whole argument about how it will lead to a 
decrease in jobs. For reasons I can't understand, I think it is just 
sort of ``blind ideology'' that my colleagues don't want to support 
this. We are glad to have a big increase for ourselves. Then I say, 
``OK. What could be the reasons?''
  Here are the arguments that are brought out to the floor. One is we 
will see all of these jobs disappear. But precisely the opposite is 
happening.
  Until I hear to the contrary, I don't quite understand that argument.
  My colleague from Wyoming, who I enjoyed hearing, said we didn't have 
any hearings. The chairman of the Committee on Labor and Human 
Resources, my good friend, said we would be pleased to have hearings.
  So we don't have hearings. Hearings are denied and then that is used 
as an argument why we shouldn't take action.
  Then I hear my good friend from Utah make the argument that these 
jobs are not just about earnings. They are about learning, and that we 
should recognize the dignity of work. I agree. But do you want to know 
something? The best way that we can recognize the dignity of the work 
is to make sure there is some value to the work and make sure that 
these men and women who are taking care of our children, taking care of 
our parents, providing us with food, cleaning buildings, and you name 
it, are provided with a decent wage.
  A lot of people, no matter how hard they work, are poor because wages 
are too low. To talk to them about the dignity of their work and how 
this is great for learning just misses the point, if we won't talk 
about earnings.
  I don't know what reality we are dealing with here. We are dealing 
with the phenomenon of many working poor families in our country with 
the head of household working full-time, and those families are still 
poor.
  I am hearing colleagues talk about how we are opposed to raising the 
minimum wage because somehow we think it will undercut the dignity 
people have. Or we are opposed to raising the minimum wage because we 
really think this is as much about learning as it is earning. I just do 
not understand these arguments.
  Mr. President, we know that this especially helps women because they 
are disproportionately among the low-wage workers. We know that this 
disproportionately helps adults. We dealt with the mythology that this 
is all about teenagers. Then we get into the argument: But there are a 
percentage of these workers who are younger people, high school age, 
college age.
  Again, I don't know what reality my colleagues are focused on here. 
But do you know, they work for compelling reasons as well. In case 
anybody hasn't noticed, higher education is an expensive proposition.
  Many high school students and college students are working--I meet 
many college students who are working 2 and 3 minimum wage jobs. That 
is why it takes them 6 or 7 years to graduate. They are not doing it 
just on some lark. They are doing it because this is key to their being 
able to finance their education or help their parents finance their 
education. Or, if they are older--since many of the students are older 
and going back to school--it is even more critical.
  I heard my colleague from Utah refer to a study that showed when you 
have a higher minimum wage, welfare mothers stay on welfare a longer 
period of time. That does not make any sense to me. I would love to 
know what there is to that story. Because, frankly, if you

[[Page S10687]]

are going to talk about the importance of going from welfare to 
workfare, presumably one of the key things you want to make sure of is 
that the jobs are there that pay a decent wage so those mothers and 
children will be better off. For some reason, States with higher 
minimum wage--or I guess the argument is supposed to be that by raising 
the minimum wage we have discouraged these parents from moving from 
welfare to work? It just makes no sense. I would love to know a little 
bit more about that finding.
  So, my conclusion--and I say this with some indignation--we just have 
all the sympathy in the world when we have oil companies coming out 
here asking for special breaks, but we have very little sympathy when 
it comes to these working poor families.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 10 minutes have expired. Who 
yields time? The Senator from Utah is recognized.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President I yield 10 minutes to the distinguished 
Senator from Vermont.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont is recognized.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I have listened to my good friend from 
Minnesota, and certainly understand his concerns. But I think the 
picture he gives of the situation is somewhat different than what I 
perceive. I have faithfully supported minimum wage increases over the 
years, but there comes a time when we try to push things too fast and 
we could well destroy the very goals we are trying to reach.
  One of my major goals as chairman of the Labor Committee is to get 
people into the workforce and keep them there. That is why I worked so 
hard with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to enact legislation 
that will improve and streamline our adult education job-training 
programs. That is why I am working so hard on developing legislation 
that will improve our postsecondary, adult and vocational education. 
That is why I have, with my friend from Massachusetts, introduced 
legislation to help the disabled find jobs and get off the federal 
rolls while maintaining their health benefits. And that is why, 
although I have supported past minimum wage increases, I am concerned 
that if we raise the minimum wage too soon after the last increase, we 
may cause more harm than good.
  Here in Congress, we continually grapple with the issue of how to 
assist low-skilled workers--particularly workers who have to support a 
family--without destroying the very jobs they rely on to support 
themselves and their families. It is hard for people with families and 
low skills to get by. We have seen and heard a lot of evidence about 
this. But it is also hard for small businesses to get by. Business 
failures are commonplace and margins are thin. When we raise the 
minimum wage, we make it more difficult for these businesses to justify 
hiring inexperienced, unskilled, and untrained workers.
  For the past 60 years, we have relied upon the minimum wage to set a 
floor beneath wages. Every time we have increased it, we have given 
businesses five years or so to adjust from the last increase to the 
next enactment. The only exception was once during the 1970s when the 
real minimum wage declined even as the nominal wage was increasing. 
Those of us will remember, this was during a time of incredible 
inflation.
  However, before the last increase even took effect, the senior 
Senator from Massachusetts had launched a new campaign for another 
increase in the minimum wage. The net effect of these increases would 
be a 45 percent rise in the minimum wage over a four and a half-year 
period. I am concerned that saddling small business with this steep 
increase over a relatively short period of time will have some negative 
repercussions both on the business owners as well as workers who count 
on their minimum wage jobs, and perhaps on those individuals who are 
seeking their very first job.
  Although increases in the minimum wage have been important, they are 
not the only tool we have used to assist low-income workers who are 
supporting families. In addition, we have developed targeted government 
supports for the working poor, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit 
(EITC).
  Over the years, the EITC has been expanded to target and supplement 
the wages of low income families without threatening any job loss. This 
year, the EITC will enable a minimum wage worker who is either a single 
parent or the single wage earning parent of dependent children to 
receive 3,756 additional dollars, bringing that family's income to 
$14,468. In addition, the EITC is set up so that these families do not 
have to wait for a lump-sum tax refund; instead the workers can receive 
the tax credit in their weekly paychecks.
  A recent report released by the Center on Budget and Policies 
Priorities found that the EITC now moves more than two million children 
out of poverty. The report concluded that, ``the EITC is the most 
effective safety net program for children in working poor families.'' I 
strongly support the EITC because it is making a difference in the 
lives of working families. I also support the EITC because it provides 
an incentive to work, the incentive is specifically targeted to help 
workers from low income families, and it does so without threatening 
jobs, as a minimum wage increase will.
  Further, I am concerned that when we raise the minimum wage we are 
not targeting low income workers. Statistics show that more than half 
of the minimum wage workers live in families with yearly incomes over 
$25,000. In addition, statistics reveal that the majority of minimum 
wage earners are young, single and childless. I understand that in my 
home state of Vermont, only a small percentage of minimum wage workers 
are supporting their families on their wages. The fact that an increase 
in the minimum wage does not specifically target low income families 
becomes particularly significant when we consider the dramatic impact 
that a back-to-back increase will have on small businesses as compared 
to the actual number of low-income working families who will be helped 
by the increase.
  I believe that we should give the last minimum wage increase some 
time to be absorbed into the economy before we move to increase it 
again. I also think that we should continue to focus our efforts on 
assisting the working poor by working to improve and expand targeted 
approaches such as the EITC.
  Finally, I believe that before we open up the Fair Labor Standards 
Act to raise the minimum wage, we should take some additional steps to 
update the FLSA to better assist our working families.
  This update is sorely needed because, while the makeup of the 
American workforce has changed dramatically over the past 60 years, few 
provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act have been updated to reflect 
those changes. The needs of today's workforce are different than the 
needs of the workforce of the 1930s. Increasingly, employees are 
requesting that their employers offer more flexible work schedules and 
compensation packages. Unfortunately, the FLSA and its underlying 
regulations preclude employers from accommodating such requests. In 
other words, even though our workers are requesting more flexible 
working arrangements so that they can juggle work and family 
obligations--the arrangements that would be most helpful to these 
workers are actually prohibited under current law. And our attempts to 
change that were frustrated earlier in this past session.
  The Family Friendly Workplace Act would assist these working families 
by amending the FLSA to allow employees the ability to choose comp. 
time-- the opportunity to choose paid time off instead of cash 
compensation for overtime work. It would also allow employees to work a 
flexible biweekly schedule--to schedule their hours over a two-week 
period so that they can work additional hours during one week in order 
to take that time off during the second week. These same options have 
been available to Federal, State, and local employees for some time and 
they have been extremely popular with these public sector employees.
  Why my colleagues on the other side of the aisle refuse to 
acknowledge this and allow us to bring the FSLA up to the present-day 
needs of this Nation I do not know.
  During the first session of the 105th Congress, we engaged in 
contentious and partisan debate over the Family Friendly Workplace Act. 
While we were

[[Page S10688]]

able to pass the bill out of the Labor Committee, our Democratic 
colleagues prevented us from moving forward on the floor of the Senate.
  To be quite truthful, I still have a hard time fathoming why this 
issue has been so contentious. After all, we are talking about amending 
the law so that hourly employees in the private sector will be able to 
partake in some of the same scheduling options that salaried and 
public-sector employees currently enjoy. The public support for this 
bill has been overwhelming, and I am frustrated that we have been 
unable to move it forward.
  The point I am trying to make here today, Mr. President, is that 
while the minimum wage is important--and obviously it is--another 
increase at this time will not necessarily benefit our workforce. 
However, there are things that we can do today that will benefit 
working families. It is my hope that my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle will recognize this point and will begin working with me to 
help our workers meet the needs of their families by amending the FLSA 
to allow for more flexible work schedules. I hope my colleagues will 
lift their prohibition and allow us to consider this very important 
piece of legislation.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. NICKLES addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I yield myself 8 minutes.
  Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor--I believe there 
is going to be a motion to table--I urge my colleagues to vote in favor 
of the motion to table the Kennedy amendment which will increase the 
minimum wage by 19 percent. Just 2 years ago we raised it 21 percent.
  I heard some of the proponents of the amendment say, ``We need to 
increase minimum wage because if we don't, these people will not be 
able to make a decent living.'' Frankly, I concur; if somebody needs to 
live on $5.15 an hour, that probably is not a very good living. But if 
you follow that philosophy through, then let's increase the minimum 
wage to $10 an hour or maybe $20 an hour. It just doesn't make sense.
  What are we doing if we increase minimum wage? Right now, the minimum 
wage is $5.15 an hour. There are 2.2 million people who make that 
amount. The proposal is to increase it to $6.15 an hour. According to 
CBO, there are 11.7 million workers who make less than $6.15 an hour. 
If we do that, we are saying it is against the law for them to work for 
less than $6.15 an hour--the Federal Government, in its wisdom, has 
decided that it is against the law for anybody in America to work for 
less than $6.15 an hour. I think that is a mistake. We are saying it is 
better for them not to have a job: ``If that job doesn't pay $6.15 an 
hour, we would rather have them be unemployed.'' The Federal Government 
makes it against the law.
  Do I want them to make $6.15 an hour? You bet. Do I want them to make 
more than $6.15 an hour? You bet. But I would hate to pass a law saying 
it is against the law for them to work for less than that. That is 
exactly what we are doing. Maybe this $6.15 an hour works in 
Massachusetts, but it may not work in rural Montana or in rural New 
Mexico.
  I am bothered by the fact that we are telling people if whatever job 
they have--and maybe it is a beginning job; a lot of minimum wage jobs 
are beginning jobs; maybe they are working part time in a restaurant, 
maybe they are pumping gas or sacking groceries or something--but 
basically the Federal Government is saying, ``We would rather have you 
be unemployed; if your job doesn't pay this much, we would rather have 
you unemployed.'' Then they are entitled to receive Government 
payments, welfare benefits, so on.
  To me, that just doesn't make sense. To go back on this poverty line 
and say, ``If you don't make this money, it just is not worth it,'' is 
hogwash. That is really devaluing the whole process of people starting 
to climb the economic ladder. We are saying if the job doesn't pay so 
much, we would rather you be unemployed.
  Sometimes that first job, even though it doesn't pay very much, is 
one of the most important jobs an individual can get, because they 
learn what it means to get a job, to be at work, to be on time. They 
learn maybe that that job doesn't pay enough, so they need to get a 
better job. Maybe they need to improve their skills or maybe they need 
to continue their education.
  To say we would rather have you be unemployed--whom does that really 
hurt? It hurts low-income people. It hurts minorities 
disproportionately. It basically leaves a lot of people with idle time 
who, frankly, would be better off making $5 an hour and having a job 
and learning some skills so they can get a better job in the future. 
Instead, we will be raising the ladder and saying, ``No, we would 
rather have you be unemployed.''

  There they are, a 16-, 17-, 18-year-old person unemployed, maybe 
getting in trouble, maybe still wanting to have some money or 
something, so they get involved in doing other things. Sometimes those 
other things are illegal.
  Mr. President, you can't repeal the law of supply and demand. If you 
raise minimum wage, you are going to cost jobs, you are going to put 
people out of work, and, yes, the Congressional Budget Office says 
maybe it is 100,000, maybe it is 500,000.
  My daughter worked, and she was going to college. She was working in 
a restaurant as a waitress making $5 and something, I think--a little 
less than $6 an hour. At least she did when she started. I don't want 
the Federal Government to say, ``We don't want her to have that job.'' 
I don't want to price her out of getting that job. Unfortunately, she 
drives a car. I want her to help pay for that car. I want her to put 
gas in that car.
  Again, I think learning skills in whatever job level a person is able 
to start at--the higher the better, that is great. But if it is a 
minimum wage job, if it is a low-income-type job, if they are able to 
learn skills from that point, great. Let's not price it out of the ball 
park. Let's not put those people out on the unemployment lines. Let's 
not deprive a minority youngster who is 15 years old, or 16 years old, 
or 17 years old, in Chicago the chance to start climbing the economic 
ladder.
  Raising the minimum wage--I understand maybe the proponents' goal, 
and I share the goal of trying to raise people's incomes, but I want to 
do it through a free market, not do it through a Government mandate 
that is going to put hundreds of thousands of people out of work.
  Unfortunately, I think that is the net result of this amendment. If 
not, let's raise the minimum wage a lot more. I would like for 
everybody to make $10 an hour. If the economic arguments are valid 
behind raising this--if we raised it 21 percent 2 years ago, if we are 
going to raise it another 19 or 20 percent--if there is no negative 
economic impact, let's make it $10 or $20 an hour. Let's make sure 
everybody is going to be wealthy. Let's make sure nobody is on the 
poverty line.
  Frankly, that won't work. That just flat won't work. Most 
importantly, let's not deprive young people of the chance to climb the 
economic ladder. The hundreds of thousands, millions of these people 
who are making this level wage are people like my daughter. Let's give 
them a chance as well to start climbing the economic ladder. Let's not 
price it out.
  Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the motion to 
table the Kennedy amendment at the proper time. I compliment my 
colleague from Utah and also my colleague from Vermont for their 
statements.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of our time.
  Mr. DURBIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 7 minutes to the Senator from Illinois.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
  Mr. DURBIN. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank the Senator from 
Massachusetts for leading this debate, an important debate.
  The first job that I ever had where I was paid an hourly wage was the 
result of two lies. I walked into a delicatessen at age 14 in the home 
State of the Presiding Officer, in St. Louis, MO, a place called Union 
Station. I bought a half dozen bagels for my mother. The man leaned 
over the counter and said, ``Are you looking for a job, boy?''

[[Page S10689]]

  I said, ``Yes.''
  He said, ``How old are you?''
  And then the first lie came out. I was 14 and I said, ``I'm 16.''
  ``OK.''
  I said, ``How much does the job pay?''
  Then the second lie came out. He said, ``The minimum wage, 60 cents 
an hour.''
  With that exchange, we entered into a contract: An underage worker 
making less than the minimum wage got his first job besides delivering 
papers. I have had a lot of jobs ever since. I have met a lot of people 
along the way who have struggled at low-wage jobs and tried to make a 
living.
  And this debate is really about them.
  I guess there is a sense of frustration by some on the floor that 
these people in low-income categories will not be quiet. They keep 
speaking up and saying, ``We can't make it. We're not making it. We 
need more help. We're trying to keep our families together. We're 
trying to provide the basics for our kids, and $5.15 an hour just won't 
do it.''
  A lot of people would wish that the so-called invisible hand of the 
market would be all that we rely on, but, fortunately, we do not. 
Fortunately, since the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, we have said 
this country will have a minimum wage, because we believe there is 
dignity in work and there is dignity attached to work that pays a 
decent wage.
  Unfortunately, we politicians, who draw regular salaries, have fallen 
down on the job of keeping up with inflation. Take a look at this chart 
about what has happened to the real minimum wage while we have gone 
through all this political gasification on the floor of the House and 
the Senate.
  Starting in 1955, it was the equivalent of $4.50 an hour; it was not 
that, but in 1997 dollars it would have been $4.50 an hour. We saw the 
minimum wage, the real wage, the earning power of the minimum wage 
reach a high of $7.38 and then plummet between 1970 and 1988 to a low 
of $4.34.
  If Senator Kennedy is not successful with his effort today, you are 
going to see that line plummet again. What it means is the real earning 
power of people in low-income jobs will continue to descend; and as it 
continues to descend, it will be more difficult for them to provide 
clothing for their kids, any kind of health insurance, to pay rent on a 
decent place to live, to provide some of the amenities of life that all 
of us just take for granted.
  I have listened to the arguments, and they are so weary and time worn 
that ``if you raise the minimum wage, we will increase unemployment.'' 
The spokesmen and spokeswomen for the business community have been 
giving us that song for as long as this debate has been on the floor of 
Congress. They cannot seem to divert their eyes away from their hymnal 
in singing this long enough to look at the facts. And the facts say 
just the opposite.
  Look at what the impact on unemployment has been by our most recent 
increase in the minimum wage. When it was increased to $4.75, 
unemployment started going down. When it was increased to $5.15, it 
went down further. So the argument that raising the minimum wage forces 
employers to lay people off may happen in an isolated case or two, but 
in looking at the overall economy, you have to say there is no 
correlation here. The minimum wage has gone up and unemployment has 
gone down.
  ``Oh,'' they say, ``wait a minute. You're not talking about the most 
vulnerable people. These are the first ones they are going to lay off, 
that teenager,'' like myself at age 14 or 16, or whatever, ``trying to 
go to work and make a minimum wage. Surely, they will be the first 
casualties.'' The facts do not support that. The facts say just the 
opposite.
  Look at this. Unemployment continues to go down as the minimum wage 
goes up among teenagers age 16 to 19. They say, ``Well, there are 
special classes of teenagers.'' We all know the problems with minority 
teenagers. They are a special class. ``Surely, they'll be the first 
ones to suffer if we raise the minimum wage.'' Again, not the case. 
Minimum wage goes up; unemployment goes down.
  There is really nothing to these arguments against an increase in the 
minimum wage. Frankly, we have heard so many of them--people who will 
not acknowledge that the last time we increased the minimum wage we saw 
an increase in employment in America.
  The Senator from Oklahoma stood up and said, ``Be careful. If you 
raise this minimum wage, we're going to lose jobs.'' Since September 
1996, the last time we raised the minimum wage, 61,000 new jobs have 
been created in the State of Oklahoma. There are 154,000 Oklahomans who 
would receive a raise of $1 an hour if this Kennedy amendment passed.
  In my home State of Illinois, 179,000 new jobs have been created 
since we last increased the minimum wage. There are 374,000 Illinois 
workers and their families who are waiting for that, hoping that we 
will listen again to the need to raise this basic minimum wage.
  Who are the people who will benefit? The teenagers and the 
minorities? Yes. But if you want to describe who they are, you have to 
look at the bigger picture. Sixty percent of them are women; 74 percent 
are adults, 20 years of age or older. Some want to refer to this as a 
kid wage. Seventy-four percent of the people who would benefit by this 
amendment are over 20 years of age, 8.9 million workers in the United 
States.
  Work is an ennobling experience. It has been in my life, the lives of 
my parents and the lives of my children. I am glad that I did it. And I 
learned a lot in the experience. I always wanted to feel that I was 
getting paid fairly for hard work. Sure, I would work hard at my job to 
do a good job, but I would like to think when the paycheck came in I 
was getting a decent wage.
  Fortunately, in my life, there were very few times that I ever 
struggled to make ends meet with my family. My wife and I weathered 
those years. But for some people this is a weekly experience--waiting 
for that paycheck to come in and wondering if they are going to make 
it.
  Who are these people we are talking about? These are the people we 
entrust our parents to in nursing homes. These are the people who are 
changing the sheets on their beds, cleaning up after them. These are 
the people who we entrust our children to in day-care centers and our 
grandchildren--I might add since I am now in that vaunted category--
grandparents worried about grandchildren. These day-care workers are 
making a minimum wage, and we give them the most precious cargo we can 
deliver in bringing in our children. These are the people who made the 
bed in your hotel room, who took the dirty dishes off your table, who 
took in your cleaning. These are the people who every day get up and go 
to work. They know that work is ennobling. They are asking for 
fairness.
  I ask for 1 additional minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time has expired.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Two more minutes.
  Mr. DURBIN. I say to those who are opposing this minimum wage, that 
it is a sad day when we have reached the point when the U.S. Congress 
is so unresponsive to the reality of workers in America, so insensitive 
to what is really going on among workers in businesses across the 
United States.
  When the record is written about this Congress, and what it has 
achieved, I am afraid it will be reminiscent of General MacArthur's 
speech to a joint session of Congress over 40 years ago. He said, ``Old 
soldiers never die, they just fade away.''
  Well, maybe--maybe--it is time for this Congress to fade away--this 
Congress, which has been unwilling to address the most basic issues in 
this country; unwilling to pass campaign finance reform; unwilling to 
pass a tobacco bill to protect our children who continue to be lured by 
those companies; unwilling to show initiative to protect Social 
Security when Americans say that is their No. 1 priority; unwilling to 
do anything about education, like the crumbling schools initiative of 
my colleague Senator Carol Moseley-Braun; unwilling to address a 
Patients' Bills of Rights when every American family knows how 
vulnerable we are when it comes to health insurance and the way doctors 
and hospitals are treated; and unwilling to address the most basic 
issue, the most basic issue of fairness, that the people who get up and 
go to work every day in America deserve a decent living wage.
  It will be a tragedy if this turns out to be just another partisan 
roll call

[[Page S10690]]

swept aside and ignored because hundreds of thousands in my State and 
millions across America look to this Congress to be sensitive and to 
lead. Unfortunately, today, the debate suggests that we will not. And 
this Congress will fade away with an ignominious record when it comes 
to the people who are going to work every day and keeping America 
moving.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sessions). Who yields time?
  Mr. HATCH. I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Iowa.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah yields 3 minutes to the 
Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I want to talk about the procedure of 
this minimum wage bill on a very, very important bankruptcy reform bill 
we have. The substance may be very important, but the procedure is what 
we want to consider as we ask our colleagues to vote on this amendment.
  We are on the first major change in bankruptcy legislation in 20 
years--very needed change. So what is the minimum wage bill doing on 
this bill? This bill was voted out of committee 16-2. The author of 
this minimum wage amendment was one of those two people who voted 
against it. Obviously, by putting minimum wage on this, it is a poison 
pill to defeat this legislation. This is an anchor that is going to 
take this bill to the bottom of the ocean if this amendment is adopted. 
We must not let this amendment be adopted if we want a strong 
bankruptcy bill, any bankruptcy bill, out of this Congress.

  We have about 2 weeks left to get this bill worked up, with wide 
differences between the House bill and the Senate bill. If we adopt 
this amendment on minimum wage, I am sure the majority leader will take 
this bill down.
  I am asking my colleagues not to vote for this amendment because of 
the merits or demerits of minimum wage, but because this is a poison 
pill that will destroy the bankruptcy reform legislation that has so 
much going for it. When a bill comes out of the Judiciary Committee 16-
2, it has a lot of bipartisan support, and you know it will go. This is 
one way that one opponent of this bankruptcy bill can stop it.
  Now, as important as a minimum wage increase might be to help some 
families in America, this bankruptcy bill is also very important to 
help lower-income families in America because there is not a single 
family in America--low-income or high-income--that is not paying part 
of the costs of bankruptcy; $40 billion costs to the economy every 
year, $400 for a family of four. So every family that the Senator from 
Massachusetts is trying to help through an increase in minimum wage, he 
is hurting by stopping the reform of bankruptcy. We must reform 
bankruptcy. This is a hidden tax on the poor of America.
  By passing this legislation, reducing the tax, we will help the very 
same families that the Senator from Massachusetts wants to help.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we have how much time?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Seventeen minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to my friend from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for yielding this 
time.


                         Privilege of the Floor

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent privilege be 
granted to Yvonne Byrne of my staff for the duration of the debate on 
this bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, first, let me commend my friend and 
colleague, Senator Kennedy, for his long-time commitment and leadership 
on this issue, among many others, but especially on this issue. So many 
people are now working in America and earning at least a raise from the 
minimum wage of what we had a few years ago of $5.15 because of the 
hard work and effort and leadership of Senator Kennedy.
  As Senator Kennedy knows, this is an issue of basic fairness about 
whether those Americans who work hard, who have helped our Nation grow 
to a period of very significant economic prosperity, should, indeed, 
receive some of the benefits of this prosperity.
  I was in Iowa on Friday. I visited the Tri-State Food Bank in Sioux 
City, IA. Now, the unemployment rate in Sioux City and the surrounding 
areas is about 2 percent--literally almost no unemployment. The economy 
is growing; people are working. It is some of the best times people in 
that area have ever had from what they tell me and from what all the 
indicators are. Yet, the director of the Tri-State Food Bank Mr. Ron 
Swanson informed me that they are getting more demand for food from the 
food bank than they have ever had before. Now they are concerned about 
the winter and whether or not they will have the food necessary. I 
said, with all these people working, why is it that people are coming 
to the food bank?
  Earlier, I visited the food bank in Des Moines and Karen Ford told me 
the same thing. That in this time of economic prosperity and growth and 
low unemployment, the demand for the commodities and the food from the 
food banks is higher than ever.
  As I was told in Sioux City on Friday, you have a lot of people who 
have come off of welfare in the so-called Welfare-to-Work Program. They 
are making minimum wage, they are feeding their families, clothing 
their kids, sending their kids to school, paying rent, they are getting 
food stamps. But their food stamps are running out before the end of 
the month so they have to go to the food bank to get USDA commodities 
of rice, USDA canned pears and canned peaches, USDA flour, plus the 
donations that churches, schools and the businesses in that area donate 
to the food bank.
  Now, these are not people that are shirking. These are not people 
that are just out on the streets. These are people that go to work 
every day trying to provide for their families. Yet they have to go to 
the food bank before the end of the month because the food stamps run 
out. These are people making the minimum wage--$5.15 an hour.
  It is not right in this country when in this time of economic 
prosperity when millionaires are created every day and we have 
billionaires like we have never seen before, that people who work and 
go to work every day can't even get enough food to last until the end 
of the month.
  That is what this is about. That is what this whole debate and this 
vote is about. For the life of me, I can't understand why anyone would 
vote against raising the minimum wage just the modest amount that 
Senator Kennedy is proposing.
  I had my staff calculate up for me what the minimum wage would be if 
it had increased at the same rate that CEO salaries, chief executive 
office salaries, had gone up on average since 1960. If the minimum wage 
had increased at the same rate as CEO average salaries since 1960, the 
minimum wage today--are you ready for this--would be $41 an hour. Now, 
that tells you about the spread. That tells you what is happening in 
our society. Fewer and fewer people making more and more money, getting 
all the wealth, more and more people shoved to the bottom who make the 
minimum wage, who get food stamps, and then have to go to the food bank 
to get food to last them until the end of the month. It is not right. 
It is not right in this country that those conditions have to exist.
  They tell us, well, if you raise the minimum wage there will be 
unemployment, people will be out of work. How many times do we have to 
hear this nonsense? We know it is not true. We have the facts, we have 
the data. It is absolutely not true. For example, in Iowa about 5 years 
ago, Iowa raised their minimum wage more than the national minimum 
wage. What we heard at that time from the Republicans in Iowa was, oh 
my gosh, it will cost us all these jobs, people will leave Iowa. They 
will go to other States where there is a lower minimum wage.
  In 1989, Iowa raised their minimum wage. By 1996, the Iowa minimum 
wage was forty cents more than the Federal minimum wage. Guess what 
happened? Nobody left. People worked. Jobs didn't leave. Businesses 
didn't leave. In fact, we had one of the greatest periods of job growth 
and business growth in the State of Iowa when we had a higher

[[Page S10691]]

minimum wage than the Federal minimum wage.
  Now the Federal minimum wage has caught up to Iowa. I think that 
points out the fallacy of the argument that if you raise the minimum 
wage, businesses are going to go out of business and they will leave. 
We proved in Iowa that is not so because we had a higher minimum wage 
than the Federal.
  This is the time for us to stand up and be counted for what is fair 
and right in our society. I thank Senator Kennedy.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we have had a good debate and discussion 
on this issue during the course of the morning. The opposition to an 
increase in the minimum wage raised a number of issues, which we 
anticipated and responded to.
  First of all, they say that there is going to be an increasing 
problem in terms of unemployment. We have demonstrated that we have the 
lowest unemployment since World War II.
  They argue that it is going to add to the problems of inflation. We 
have demonstrated that we have the lowest rates of inflation, and we 
have demonstrated a very substantial growth in terms of small business 
interests.
  I want to point out, since our friends, Senator Hatch and Senator 
Enzi, talked about the restaurant industry, that they have been prime 
opponents of any increase for the hardest working Americans, those at 
the lowest end of the economic ladder. I point out that in this 
industry in 1996, the average restaurant CEO grew in income by 8.6 
percent. Their average bonus increased 13 percent. Their average value 
of stock options exploded by over 100 percent. Their average total 
compensation grew by 6 percent.
  These are some of the highest paid CEOs in this country who are 
making that high salary on the basis of low-wage workers. I might also 
add that of the 100 top CEOs in the restaurant industry, there is not 
one single woman--not one single woman.
  Mr. President, before we take all of the arguments by my friend from 
Utah where we have seen since 1996 a growth and an increase of 59,000 
jobs--that was after the increase of the minimum wage in 1996 in 
October, and September 1997--one of the lowest unemployment rates in 
this country, I have a list of the statements that have been made by my 
friend from Oklahoma that he gave in the last debate: I don't think 
that they should do it in my State because they are going to put people 
out of work.
  That was said in 1996. Senator Hatch virtually said the same thing in 
1996. The facts demonstrate to the contrary.
  Finally, Mr. President, I want to point this out. We have seen here 
what you can't get away from: that is, the decline in the purchasing 
power for low-income Americans. That is a fact. It is lower now than it 
has been for a period of 30 years.
  Republicans signed onto this program. President Eisenhower, President 
Nixon, President Bush--all Republicans--supported an increase in the 
minimum wage. Yet we hear from our Republican leadership that we can't 
possibly do it because it is going to destroy America.
  Mr. President, it is important to understand why this issue is so 
important to the religious community. We have 170 organizations, the 
principal leaders in the religious community, supporting an increase in 
the minimum wage because they understand it, whether it is the American 
Friends, Catholic Charities, the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical 
Church, the Lutheran Church, the American Council of Churches, U.S. 
Catholic Bishops, United States Church of Christ--they understand it. 
It is a moral issue for them--believing in the dignity of the 
individual. They ought to be able to have a decent living, that they 
are working in America to provide for their children. That is what the 
issue is.
  You can give us all the charts you want made up by the restaurant 
industry to distort what is really being debated on the floor of the 
U.S. Senate.
  This is an issue involving women--sixty percent of the recipients are 
women.
  It is an issue involving children--the neediest and the poorest 
children in this country who are the sons and daughters of those 
minimum-wage workers.
  This is a civil rights issue--it is paying people the entry wage, a 
livable wage for those individuals who come from different backgrounds 
and tradition, and also the minorities in our country.
  This is basically the moral issue of our time--and when we have been 
at our best, we have responded to it, Republicans and Democrats alike. 
It is a fundamental issue that has been stated by my colleagues--
Senators Wellstone, Harkin, Durbin, and others who have spoken on it.
  To sum up, it is whether the United States of America, with the most 
extraordinary economic prosperity in the history of our Nation, is 
going to say that our fellow citizens who work hard and who have 
children ought to have a livable wage. That is what the issue is about. 
The Republican leadership is saying no to those working families.
  We hope that we are going to have some support from the other side of 
the aisle because we believe that there are those who understand the 
importance of this issue to working families. There is no issue before 
this U.S. Senate that involves fairness and decency and equity like an 
increase in the minimum wage. This is it. Now is the time.

  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I always enjoy listening to Members of 
Congress talk about how the minimum wage is going to benefit this 
society as we raise the minimum wage. Some of us have worked for the 
minimum wage in our lifetimes. We know what it is like to work for the 
minimum wage. We also know what it is like to lose your job because you 
raise the minimum wage too much, and small business people who do not 
make all that much money have to either reduce employment or get out of 
it. That is what happens.
  The Senator from Minnesota, the Senator from Illinois, and the 
Senator from Massachusetts I think are looking at the wrong numbers. 
They should be looking at employment--not unemployment. They should be 
comparing it to what might have occurred without the mandatory minimum 
wage increases. There is no question that we have a good economy right 
now. A rising tide lifts all boats, thank goodness.
  I notice that my colleagues are not discussing the plunging youth 
employment rates following the minimum wage increases in 1978 or 1989. 
The 1996 legislation that raised the minimum wage included a package of 
tax cuts. To some extent, of course, that helped mitigate the impact. 
You would think that by increasing the minimum wage we were going to 
have an increase in jobs. Really, I don't know any responsible 
economist who makes that argument. The fact remains, however, that 
unskilled workers are not helped, they are often hurt, by increases in 
the minimum wage, particularly in areas where the market wage for 
entry-level workers is lower.
  You are looking at one of the main sponsors of the child care 
development block grant. I wonder how many children are not being cared 
for because we keep increasing the minimum wage and freezing people out 
of child care.
  Yes, there are a lot of issues involved here. Wouldn't it be better 
to cut Americans taxes? We could give everyone more money in their 
paychecks without jeopardizing jobs and at the same time without 
hurting small businesses or without triggering price increases for 
consumers.
  I think instead of having minimum wages we ought to have minimum 
taxes. But where do we get the help from the other side on that? We 
don't get much of it. If you cut taxes, you actually give people an 
increase in wages, because they actually take more money home.
  Frankly, that is what we ought to be interested in doing to help 
these people along the way. It would help small business people, where 
most of the jobs are created. Better than 50 percent of all jobs are 
created by small business people, who would be the most severely 
impacted and who are the most severely impacted by increases in the 
minimum wage, other than those who never get a chance to enter into the 
workforce as a result of increases in the minimum wage.
  Let's be honest about it. This is not the simple little economic 
interest, as

[[Page S10692]]

some on the other side have been saying. There is a lot involved here. 
We ought to be reducing taxes, not increasing minimum wages.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts has 4 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 3 minutes.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I have not heard my colleague from Utah 
respond to this. I haven't heard one colleague on the other side of the 
aisle respond to the data or to the facts. I have heard them try to 
hide behind the argument that raising the minimum wage was going to 
lead to a loss of jobs. Since increasing the minimum wage in the prior 
year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 517,000 new jobs. 
Sometimes we do not want to know what we do not want to know. I have 
not heard any refutation of that at all.
  So my question is, Why in the world would we not value work and give 
dignity to work by raising the minimum wage, which is so important to 
women in the workplace, so important to children, so important to 
families?
  Then my colleague from Utah moves on to another argument concerning 
child care. In all due respect, that is what is so sad about this 
debate. If we really wanted to do our best by families and value 
families, we would be raising the minimum wage, we would be investing 
in affordable child care--which this Republican-led Senate will not do. 
We would have universal health care coverage, which this Republican-led 
Senate will not do. In child care, I hope the tradeoff is not to say 
that we are not going to be able to provide good child care for 
children unless we continue to devalue the work of men and women in 
child care. Many of them barely make minimum wage or barely above it. 
That is why we have a 40-percent turnover every year. This is not 
acceptable.
  We can raise the minimum wage, which is important for women, 
important for these working families, important for children, important 
for young people who are trying to work their way through school. We 
can invest in the health and skills and intellect and character by 
investing in affordable child care. We can invest in health care. This 
Republican-led Senate has done none of these things.
  In all due respect, in all due respect, the reason that 75 or 80 
percent of the people in the country believe we should raise the 
minimum wage is because they have some sense of fairness and justice. 
We raised our salaries by $30,000 just a few years ago. We gave 
ourselves a cost-of-living increase that amounts to a $1.50 increase 
per hour, we make $130,000-plus and say we need to make that. And yet, 
we will not raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.15 over a 2-year 
period so people who work hard will not be poor in America and their 
children will not be poor? This is really outrageous.
  I hope we get a majority vote.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I believe I have some time?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts has 1 minute 20 
seconds.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, just again to underline the excellent 
point my friend from Iowa made, according to the U.S. Conference of 
Mayors study, in 1997 requests for emergency food aid increased 86 
percent in the cities served--these are cities with Republican and 
Democratic mayors. Mr. President, 67 percent of the cities cited low-
paying jobs as one of the main causes of hunger. Low-paying jobs are 
the most frequently cited causes of hunger. Nearly half of those 
relying on emergency food aid do so because their earnings are too low. 
In 1997, in Jeffersonville, IN, one-fourth of the families receiving 
emergency shelter were earning less than $6 an hour.
  This is about fairness to teachers' aides, to child care workers. It 
is a basic and fundamental issue with regard to health care workers as 
well. We are either going to respect our fellow citizens and give them 
this modest increase in the minimum wage, or we are not going to meet 
our responsibilities.
  Mr. President, has the time expired?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time remaining is 10 seconds.
  Mr. HARKIN. If the Senator will yield me the 10 seconds--I have 10 
seconds, Mr. President--there is a lot of talk in this town these days 
about morality and immorality. This has to do with morality. This has 
to do with what is moral in this society and to stick up for people who 
are low-income and are going hungry.

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