[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 57 (Thursday, April 29, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S4699]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. KENNEDY (for himself, Mr. Daschle, Mr. Akaka, Mr. Bayh, 
        Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Byrd, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Corzine, Mr. Dodd, Mr. 
        Durbin, Mr. Edwards, Mr. Feingold, Mr. Harkin, Mr. Lautenberg, 
        Mr. Leahy, Mr. Lieberman, Ms. Mikulski, Mr. Reed, Mr. 
        Rockefeller, Mr. Sarbanes, Mr. Schumer, Ms. Landrieu, Mr. 
        Levin, Mr. Kerry, Mr. Bingaman, and Mrs. Murray):
  S. 2370. A bill to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to 
provide for an increase in the Federal minimum wage; read the first 
time.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it has been seven long years since 
Congress last acted to raise the minimum wage. The cost of living keeps 
going up, and these workers keep falling farther and farther behind, 
because the minimum wage they're paid buys less and less.
  The current minimum wage is $5.15 an hour. You can't work hard, raise 
a family, and pay for food and rent and clothing, on $5.15 an hour--
$10,700 a year--$5,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. 
The minimum wage is too low.
  The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2004, which I introduce today, will 
raise the minimum wage by $1.85 to $7.00 an hour. The raise to $7.00 
would be carried out in three moderate steps in just over two years. 
More than 7 million workers would directly benefit from this minimum 
wage increases.
  Let me be clear about who we're talking about here--the janitors who 
clean our great buildings late into the night; the school aides who 
support our kids and their teachers; home healthcare workers caring for 
our elderly parents in their home; the children whose parents can't 
afford to give them more than a single slim meal a day.
  There is one thing that stands in the way of a decent minimum wage--
one thing--and that's the Republican Party.
  If this President and the Republican Party really cared about working 
Americans--about minimum wage workers--why would they oppose a decent 
wage for a hard day's work? But for seven long years, they have blocked 
every effort in this Congress to raise the minimum wage.
  Why would they oppose unemployment benefits for the 8 million out-of-
work Americans? Why would they oppose overtime pay if you have to work 
more than 40 hours a week? Why would they support shipping your jobs 
overseas?
  A fair increase in the minimum wage is long overdue. We should all be 
able to agree on the principle that no one who works for a living 
should have to live in poverty. How can Congress keep saying no, when 
more and more workers can't make ends meet? I plan to be back on the 
Senate floor offering this bill as an amendment over and over again 
until Congress agrees to give low-wage workers the raise they have 
earned.
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