[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 9 (Wednesday, January 17, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E129]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     FAIR MINIMUM WAGE ACT OF 2007

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                           HON. BETTY SUTTON

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, January 10, 2007

  Ms. SUTTON. Mr. Speaker, one of the greatest measures of our success 
as elected representatives will be the impact our actions have on the 
silent majority of working class poor in America.
  This Congress, to its shame, has ignored these Americans for over a 
decade now in favor of an embarrassing collection of legislative excess 
that favored the connected few.
  Today, we put an end to it.
  During the course of the campaign that ended just a few months ago, I 
met a woman whose story I have carried with me all the way to Congress.
  She was working at the snack bar at the local bowling alley and she 
was working her heart out.
  As she shared her story with me, it became terribly apparent that 
despite valiant efforts, she was struggling mightily to make ends meet 
for her family.
  This fine woman you see was a single mother who had a teenage 
daughter at home, a daughter she worried about because she just had too 
little time to spend with her because she worked so much.
  And this fine woman also had a son who had recently graduated from 
high school, a son who intended to join the military to serve his 
country and hopefully find a way to a higher education and a brighter 
future.
  The problem was her son had a medical condition which precluded him 
from military service. And by the way, as hard as she worked, this fine 
woman did not have any health insurance.
  As this proud woman and mother told me of her struggles to build a 
future for her family, her exhaustion grew and her strength diminished 
as she tried to think of a phone number where she could be reached.
  You see, this fine woman not only worked at the local bowling alley, 
she also worked two other jobs where she earned minimum wage.
  As she talked, her dilemma was apparent--she worried that her jobs 
were robbing her of the time her kids needed to spend with her but she 
knew that she needed to work all three minimum wage jobs just to 
provide for them.
  This is not a choice that any woman or man should have to make and 
our Congress over the last decade should be ashamed for not helping 
this fine woman and tens of millions more hard working Americans.
  As you can see from this very real and personal story, raising the 
minimum wage is not about politics, it's about traditional American 
values, it's about fairness and opportunity, it's about changing the 
way we treat our working men and women.
  It's about paying rent, putting food on the table and paying for our 
children to go to college.
  That is why today's vote to increase the minimum wage is so 
important, not just for our Nation's working families, not just for 
that proud woman and mother working at the bowling alley, but for her 
children, for our future.
  Today with Americans supporting us, we start fighting for those who 
have been for far too long neglected.

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