[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 67 (Thursday, May 19, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1024-E1025]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   THE FAIR MINIMUM WAGE ACT OF 2005

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 18, 2005

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, today, together with 
100 of my colleagues, we are introducing legislation to raise the 
Federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 over 2 years. Senator Edward 
Kennedy is introducing identical legislation in the Senate. Two reports 
that are also being released today, one by the Center for Economic and 
Policy Research and one by the Children's Defense Fund, make obvious 
the importance of raising the minimum wage for workers, children, and 
families.
  American workers are long overdue for a raise. Real wages are 
actually declining for the first time in more than a decade, while

[[Page E1025]]

prices for healthcare, gasoline, and other necessities are rising, 
making it even more urgent that we raise the minimum wage now. The 
minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 per hour since 1997--$5.15 per 
hour. These days, a gallon of milk can cost half that much in some 
parts of the country. Imagine working for the better part of an hour 
and only being able to afford a gallon of milk--how do you ever make 
ends meet? The answer is: you don't.
  One of the reports issued today, from the Center for Economic and 
Policy Research, shows that most minimum wage workers make significant 
contributions to their total family income. Half of them are between 
the ages of 25 and 54. The report also shows the importance of 
increasing the minimum wage to prevent families from falling further 
into poverty. Too often minimum wage jobs are not transitional. As the 
report makes clear, many workers find themselves trapped in minimum 
wage jobs; more than one-third of 25- to 54-year-old workers in minimum 
wage jobs are still earning the minimum wage after three years. The 
report is entitled ``Not Up, Not Out: Few Prime-Age Workers Move Out of 
Minimum Wage lobs'' and is available at http://www.cepr.net/
publications/labor_markets_2005_05.pdf.
  The other report, from the Children's Defense Fund, shows that 
importance of increasing the minimum wage for more than 10 million 
children. The report, entitled ``Increasing the Minimum Wage: An Issue 
of Children's Well-Being,'' states: ``The annual income of an 
individual working full-time, with two children, at the $5.15 an hour 
minimum wage leaves them $4,500 below the poverty level. An increase in 
the minimum wage to $7.25 would benefit many of the 9.7 million 
children who live in households where at least one worker earns between 
the current minimum wage and $7.25 per hour. Furthermore, 1.2 million 
of these children live in households where two or more workers earned 
less than the proposed minimum wage.'' At $5.15 per hour, a worker who 
works 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year earns $10,712. In 2003, the 
poverty level for a family of two (a parent and a child) was $12,682. 
The Children's Defense Fund report is available at http://
www.childrensdefense.org/familyincome/obs/minimumwagereport2005.pdf.
  Every American deserves a decent wage for the work they do, and most 
Americans agree that we should raise the minimum wage. Congress 
disrespects workers and violates the will of the people when it refuses 
to increase the minimum wage. We ought to respect workers by 
guaranteeing them a fair wage. Work should be the path out of poverty, 
but millions of Americans work fulltime and still live in poverty.
  The Miller-Kennedy legislation also extends the minimum wage to the 
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory in the 
Pacific Ocean. For years, the Congress has allowed basic labor 
standards to be denied to workers in the Marianas. We cannot continue 
to allow workers to be trapped in virtual involuntary servitude under 
sweatshop working conditions, indebted by usurious recruitment fees, 
paid inadequate wages and too often cheated out of what little they are 
owed. I have introduced legislation, H.R. 2298, to protect workers from 
recruitment abuses and to hold recruiters and employers responsible for 
the working conditions they have promised. This bill goes a step 
further to ensure a decent minimum wage.
  Among the 7.5 million workers earning between $5.15 and $8 an hour--
the people this bill is intended to help--84 percent of them are adults 
over the age of 20. Nearly half of them are married or have children. 
Over half of them are women; 59 percent are white; 13 percent are 
black; and 23 percent are Hispanic. Sixty percent of them work full-
time.
  The inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage has declined 20 
percent since 1997. The legislation we are introducing today, the Fair 
Minimum Wage Act of 2005, increases the minimum wage from $5.15 to 
$5.85 within 60 days; then to $6.55 1 year after the first increase; 
and finally to $7.25 1 year after that.
  I urge my colleagues to support this vital legislation.

                          ____________________