[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 119 (Wednesday, September 11, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H5497-H5502]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
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LOW-WAGE WORKERS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Collins of New York). Under the
Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Pocan) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of
the minority leader.
Mr. POCAN. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Progressive Caucus, I am
here to present a conversation that we would like to share with the
American public, which is the plight of low-wage workers.
The Progressive Caucus here in Congress has worked on this issue for
many years. This last month, when Members went home and worked in the
district for the month, we joined many of these low-wage workers in a
day of strike as a way to present their case to the American people.
Too many people are paid too little for the work they do. That harms
families in this country; that depresses the economy in this country;
and that makes more people have to go to government assistance because
they're simply not paid enough for the work that they're doing.
We all know that economy has had a lot of tough times in the last
several years, but things are getting better. The problem is they are
only getting better for some.
We know that corporate profits have continued to break records, while
Americans are working harder and getting paid less. We know that the
stock markets are close to all time highs and corporate profits are
booming. The $200 billion-a-year fast food industry is doing extremely
well in this country, and our workers are more than pulling their
weight to help in these successes.
Over the past 30 years, the productivity of the American worker has
increased 85 percent, however, the salaries that they get paid simply
haven't kept up in pace.
Mr. Speaker, why is the economy stuck? Why aren't these people making
more money? Why is it that while so many who are in the top 1 percent,
the top 10 percent, are doing extremely well, somehow those financial
returns haven't trickled down to the rest of the economy?
We know the incomes of the top 1 percent have grown by more than 31
[[Page H5498]]
percent since 2009, just in the last several years--a 31 percent
increase--yet incomes for the bottom 99 percent have moved less than 1
percent. That inequality is what is causing the real problem that we
have.
In order to have the economy truly prosper and truly recover, we have
to make sure that all people are benefiting and that all people see an
additional wage. Wages have been stagnant for a generation, as the
minimum wage right now in real terms is $1 less than it was in 1980.
But yet the fastest-growing jobs in the economy are also those same
jobs--they're the lowest paid. Fast food, retail, home health, child
care, and security jobs are growing, but they don't pay enough to cover
the basic necessities like food, clothing, and rent.
So how much is enough? Many of these people are working across the
country at $7.25 an hour. Now, if you take that times 2,080, which is
the number of full-time equivalent hours in a year, that's about
$15,080 a year for a full-time worker on minimum wage. For a couple
both earning that, that's a little over $30,000. If you have a family,
a couple of children, you're not even close to the median income of
$51,144 in this country.
But what makes this number even tougher is when you look at the
actual cost of living. The Economic Policy Institute has said that the
cost per year of maintaining a modest standard of living for a typical
family of four--they figured that out across the country, including in
my home city of Madison, Wisconsin, home of Bucky Badger--and these
numbers are written in stone--this is what the costs are on average:
If you live in Madison, Wisconsin, your average costs are likely over
$75,000 a year for a family of four. That's a breakdown of housing is
about $10,668; food another $9,048; child care for that family $18,312;
transportation $7,284; other necessities a little over $5,000; and
their taxes are about $6,900.
Now, that's for Madison, Wisconsin, the middle of America. But what
about other places? Well, Milwaukee, a bigger city, but still in my
State, $74,000 is that expense. In New York City, it's over $94,000 for
that same low-wage worker, that same minimum-wage worker. And one of
the best deals for a major city across the country, Atlanta, it's still
almost $62,000 a year, almost double what an average couple could make
on minimum wage.
Now, I know some of the myths that are out there. People say a
minimum-wage worker is someone who's living at home, probably going to
school, under 18, just for pocket change, right? That's the myth. We've
heard that more than enough.
Well, here's the reality. According to the Economic Policy Institute,
what is that minimum-age worker actually? What's their demographic?
What's the profile? Well, first of all, 88 percent are over 20 years of
age--88 percent. So really it's a small token percent that is that
average high school student making minimum wage. A third of them are
over 40 years old. So a full third of the lowest-paid workers are over
40 years old. The average age, 35 years old. Twenty-eight percent of
those lowest-paid workers have children. So when we talk about that
family of four, we are talking about it because the statistics are
there. Twenty-eight percent have children. Fifty-five percent of them
are full-time workers. So this isn't something on the side for some
extra pocket change. This is the full-time job that they have at that
minimum wage. On average, over half of them earn half of their family
income based on that minimum wage job. Over 43 percent of them have
some kind of college education.
So that's the reality. When you look at that worker, that's the real
demographic. This isn't that high school kid staying with their parents
making some extra money so they can go buy another CD or some new toy.
This in reality is the living sustenance for many of these workers
across the country.
Yet, if you look at just one of the fast food companies, their CEO
makes 580 times what that low-income worker is making at that very same
company. Now, if you just raise that wage to $10.10, you would
literally lift 6 million of these people out of poverty--6 million
people, you could literally have a significant change in their lives.
Now, let's look at the economy and what this means. We know that
while wages have been stagnant, the price of housing in the United
States has doubled since the early '80s. Safe, adequate housing has
become less and less affordable to someone who makes minimum wage.
But let's look at some of the consequences of that person making
$7.25 an hour. First of all, it's bad for families. If you can't
support your family and your children on that wage, like we just talked
about--rent, food, medicine, housing--the most basic costs that you
have are more than they could possibly make on that.
Second, it's bad for the deficit. Low-wage workers often qualify for
food stamps and other public assistance while big profitable
corporations are forcing taxpayers to subsidize their low wages and
burden our economy.
In Wisconsin alone, there is one employer that has a majority of
folks who are on our low-income assistance health program. A majority
of folks who should be getting that support from their job instead are
on our public assistance program for health insurance.
Now, thankfully, the Affordable Care Act is going to make sure that
more and more people in this country have access to health care. But
the reality is we are subsidizing those people right now, each and
every one of us, because those big corporations that are having record
profits and CEOs making hundreds of times what that low-wage worker
makes are doing well and yet we are paying for it.
Also, it's bad for the economy. That means in the local economy if
you don't have people spending money in this current economy, that's
what's holding us back. I truly believe a rising tide lifts all boats.
If we increase that wage, whether it be $9 that the President proposed,
$10.10, $15, whatever wage we ultimately have a debate about, you raise
that, that money that that low-wage worker has is not going to be
invested, it's not going to be held in savings. It's very likely going
to be spent in the economy just to get by on the day-to-day expenses.
But that builds the entire economy. If they are able to occasionally go
to a movie or maybe go to a restaurant, not the fast food one they work
at, and have a dinner, that's going to help stimulate the economy for
everyone. So, again, we hold back our economy by those low-wage workers
not making more.
Finally, I think what this country really is about is opportunity.
This takes away that opportunity to grow the middle class from the
middle out and from the bottom up. How do we help those people get that
chance, that opportunity for their family that many of us have, but
they're not able to because they're stuck at that job at $7.25 an hour,
yet they have the expenses we all have?
Now, at the same time, during this, CEO pay has skyrocketed. We know
that the average CEO between 1978 and 2012, their compensation grew,
according to an article in The Huffington Post, 876 percent. Now,
during the same period, worker compensation grew 5.4 percent.
Income inequality is a huge problem in this country. If we don't
address it at some point, these stagnant wages that haven't kept up
with the cost of living, haven't kept up with the cost of housing, we
are going to have real and serious problems for our economy for each
and every person.
In fact, the average CEO right now makes 354 times what that low-wage
worker makes--354 times. That fast food worker, their CEO made 580
times. But we have to make sure that everyone prospers in this country,
and everyone prospers in this economy.
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We have to make sure that families can cover their basic needs, that
we can lessen the need for public assistance and help reduce our
deficit. We can put more money in the pockets of workers instead of
corporate CEOs and, thus, more money in the pockets of our small
businesses, which are going to benefit when they're spending that
additional money. We can lift up our local economies and, by doing
that, lift up our local communities--having safer, better, healthier
communities by people having more money.
That's why the members of the Progressive Caucus stood with those
low-
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wage workers in this last month, in August, when they took a day of
strike. They didn't go to work for part of the day or for the whole day
in order to illustrate the problems that they're facing, and we across
the country stood with them to support a fair wage for a full day's
work. In more than 50 cities across the country, members of the
Progressive Caucus and other Democrats joined with these low-paid
workers to make sure we talked about their stories. I'd just like to
read a couple of quotes from people who participated in this.
One was a gentleman from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who was 45 years old,
a low-paid worker, and this is what he said:
I'm a maintenance man at McDonald's. When my grandbabies
come over on the weekend, I spend on them, making sure that
they eat and are comfortable. I eat McDonald's the last 2
weeks of the month because I have no food left.
Is that the America that, I think, we value; the land of opportunity
so that every family can prosper?
Let me read another one. This is from a worker in New York City, and
she said:
On some days, I've been up for 48 hours straight, and
McDonald's makes billions of dollars every year.
Now, think about that. That person, who very likely may have
children--28 percent of those people who are making minimum wage do--
was up for 48 hours straight. How do you do that? How do you make that
work?
So we have tried to stand up on behalf of the low-paid workers and
say it's time we address this issue. The President said we need to
raise the minimum wage. Democrats have said we need to raise the
minimum wage. People across the country--business owners and others--
have said that it's time to increase the minimum wage. I served 14
years in the Wisconsin legislature before I was here. Every single time
that we increased the minimum wage in Wisconsin we had more people
enter the workforce.
As the statistics from the Economic Policy Institute said, this isn't
about high school kids earning a little extra pocket change while
living at home, which is 12 percent of that population. This is about
getting real people into the workforce, earning money, putting it back
into the economy, supporting their families, and doing exactly what we
need to do with the economy.
When we did this across the country, we were very, very fortunate to
have someone who has been a real role model for many of us who are
progressives across the country in elected office, someone from the
city of Chicago or outside the city of Chicago, but a real leader in
the progressive movement in Congress and, again, someone who has been a
real leader for many of us for the many years that we've been in
government.
I would like to yield, Mr. Speaker, to Representative Jan Schakowsky
from the Chicago area.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Representative Pocan, for leading us in
this Special Order that really talks about so many Americans who are
paid poverty wages, people who simply cannot afford to support
themselves or their families on the kinds of wages that they are paid,
and the role of the Progressive Caucus in helping them to highlight
that.
So, on August 29, I was proud at 7 in the morning to arrive at the
Rock-n-Roll McDonald's in downtown Chicago. It's one of the most
profitable McDonald's, certainly, in our area. I saw a growing crowd of
people wearing T-shirts, saying, Strike for 15, and signs that said, We
are worth more. In Illinois, the minimum wage is $8.25, so some of them
were chanting, We can't survive on $8.25, and they were engaged in this
1-day strike, the demand being $15 an hour and the right to join a
union, to form a union.
$15 an hour to work at McDonald's?
If you were to work at McDonald's for 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a
year--and of course the average employee there works about 24 hours a
week--you would at minimum wage make the lavish salary of $31,000 a
year, which starts heading you toward the middle class, but it's
certainly not a huge salary. Compare that with the CEO of McDonald's, a
man named Donald Thompson, whose pay package last year in 2012 was
$13.7 million for the year. If you divide that out, he makes an hourly
wage of $6,611, and he earns more in the first 2 hours of work on the
first day of the year than the workers I was standing with make all
year long. Now, these weren't kids. I was out there with some people
who have worked at McDonald's for 10 years, 15 years. One gentleman was
still making $8.50 an hour. He had climbed up from the minimum wage to
$8.50 an hour.
Unless you think that McDonald's isn't thinking about its workers,
they actually put out a book, a little book, in conjunction with Visa,
called ``Practical Money Skills,'' which is going to help their workers
figure out how to budget. They have a budget that lists income from a
worker's first job and his second job, admitting that you certainly
can't plan to work at McDonald's and live on that, so you have to have
a second job--so the first job and second job--all totaling $2,060 for
the month.
Then they have recommended monthly expenses to help their workers
budget, including $600 a month for housing. Now, I don't know about
Madison, Wisconsin, or anywhere else, but in Chicago, unless you live
with somebody--or with maybe a couple of somebodies--$600 a month for
two jobs and budgeting that way is not going to get you a decent place
to live. Remarkably, they budget $20 per month for health insurance,
and that exists only in some sort of fantasy world.
These are workers who often turn to government assistance just to
make ends meet. These are the people who have often been demonized by
our colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle for going for SNAP
programs, maybe for housing assistance, for Medicaid. Lots of wealthy
Americans and even some of our colleagues suggest we ought to test them
for drug use or accuse them of being lazy; but I posit today that the
real welfare kings are those fast-food giants and all those poverty-
wage employers who refuse to pay a livable wage, a living wage. We, the
taxpayers--all the rest of the taxpayers--subsidize them because they
don't pay a living wage, so their employees, who are often working
their tails off, often have to come to the government for help. I would
argue that it's the Walmarts and the McDonald's that really depend on
these welfare programs and that, if you want to divide the world into
takers and makers, those companies and those CEOs are the real takers.
If I have time, I want to give a couple more facts.
This hasn't always been true in America, these poverty wages. Between
1948 and 1973, the productivity of U.S. workers rose 96.8 percent, and
wages rose 93.7 percent. They went up together. Workers benefited from
increases in productivity, and that's true of the wages of the managers
and bosses and CEOs as well. Wages went up. Between 1973 and 2011,
productivity rose 80.1 percent, but wages rose only 4.2 percent. So you
saw that, even though productivity went up, wages stayed essentially
flat. Median household income today, adjusted for inflation, is at 1989
levels, and it's not coincidental that during that same time union
membership dropped from about one-third of the private sector workforce
to about 6.5 percent today; nor is it coincidental that almost all the
growth in income--and, yes, we are richer today per capita than ever
before. We are at the richest point in our country, but that growth in
income has gone, really, especially to the top .1 percent, to the very
richest Americans. All of that growth in income has gone to the top.
So I think this is not just bad for the workers that we were out with
this summer. This is really bad for our economy. If we want to have a
robust middle class, where people can go out and buy things and create
demand and, thus, create jobs, they would be the real makers. They
would be the people who could revive our economy. I think that the
essentials here are a living wage and the rights of workers to be able
to collectively bargain so that they can defend themselves together,
represent themselves together and get a decent middle class life in
this richest country in the world, which is at its very richest stage
right now.
Mr. POCAN. Thank you, Representative Schakowsky.
In fact, when you talked about that, according to the Economic Policy
Institute, the average family expense for a typical family in Chicago
is $73,055.
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That $600 allotment for rent is hardly enough. That $20 for health care
will get you a bottle of orange juice and maybe some Band-Aids, but I
don't know if I'd call that health care.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. It's like flossing and praying, and that's about it.
Mr. POCAN. You're not going to get much.
I really appreciate what you said about the fact that a business
owner can benefit. I've been a small business owner for 25 years. When
I opened my small business, I had hair--it's been a long time--and I
can tell you that, when you treat your employees well, everyone
benefits. When they make more money, that helps as they're invested in
the company, and they're able to support their families. If they have
health insurance, they're able to make sure that everyone is healthy in
their families. If their families are good, they're good. There are
many benefits. Yet when you get to the factor of almost what we'd call
greed--when you get to 580 times the salary of that low-paid worker,
like the CEO of McDonald's makes--that's a problem across the country.
So I really appreciate what you've brought up and specifically your
example from Chicago because, in Madison, we've actually got it
slightly higher, about $75,000 a year. When they broke out those
expenses, they were talking housing of about $10,668, transportation
$7,200, food $9,000, taxes $6,900. When you go through that, it's
absolutely impossible to live on that minimum wage. Yet, as you said,
you were with a bunch of people who were adults who were working at
these places. Again, according to the Economic Policy Institute, 88
percent of the people are over 20 years old. The average age of a
minimum-wage worker is 35 years old. So the myth that's out there about
that low-income worker is simply not true.
Representative Schakowsky, I wonder if you might be able to just
share a little bit more, based on the years you've been here, about
exactly what some of the costs are to the local government and to the
State government and to the Federal Government that come out of these
workers having to come for subsidies, because, as you know, there are
various programs that so often get attacked, sometimes by the people on
the other side of the aisle. Like you said, there is the SNAP program
that they're trying to provide an almost $40 billion cut to in the next
budget if they have their way. There would be even less available for
those people who need the subsidy thanks to those companies. I wonder
if you could just share a little more about that.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I'll tell you that I have three times now done the
SNAP challenge, or the food stamp challenge. The average SNAP benefit
is now $4.50 a day. Almost everyone on the SNAP program is on there for
less than a year. It has been described to me by a former SNAP
recipient as a trampoline. Nobody wants to do it, and they certainly
don't want to line up at a food pantry, and those cupboards are really
having a problem being filled.
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It is hard to do. You can get the calories, but getting the nutrition
and the health that you need from the food, that is really hard to do.
People are reluctant to apply for these benefits. I wish they
weren't, but there's still some stigma attached to that. I want to
encourage people, by the way, that if they are eligible, they should
get that for the sake of their children and their own health.
States are struggling right now to meet their Medicaid budgets
because there are so many people who are not getting health care
through their employer or can't afford it on their own, so they are
turning to State and local governments. We're finding that those
governments are having to decide about fixing the roads, hiring
teachers, or being able to provide these kinds of benefits.
The same kinds of decisions that individual poor people are having to
make, governments are having to make right now. But if only they were
paid a decent wage for all the hours that they're willing to put in to
get up early and get on that bus.
Let me just tell you that I went into McDonald's with some of the
workers. They had six things that they were asking for. Listen to the
modest requests:
Stop requiring employees to pay out of pocket if their cash registers
are short;
Two, show respect to your employees--less shouting and insulting
language;
Three, air-conditioning in the kitchen;
Four, permit employees to drink water when the kitchen gets too hot.
That one threw me for a big loop. They, said, ``No, they're saying,
`Get back to work. You can't have a drink of water.' '' They put it on
paper. It's not made up;
Five, give raises and provide living wages;
Listen to this one: stop requiring employees to pay out of pocket for
food that is returned by customers.
The whole event was very peaceful. No one at McDonald's was there to
accept it, so they left these demands on the counter.
There is one other little point I want to make. This was during the
week that we were commemorating the 50th anniversary of the march for
jobs and freedom, the March on Washington. The march sought to ``give
all Americans a decent standard of living,'' and called for a minimum
wage of $2 an hour. If you adjust that $2-an-hour request from 1963,
that would equal $15.26 an hour, which is just about what the workers
are asking for right now.
The least that we could do here in this Congress is raise the minimum
wage in this country, which hasn't been raised for a long time. You
probably have that number. I don't remember how long it's been. A
$7.25-an-hour minimum wage in this country just doesn't make it.
I also believe we need to do more to guarantee workers the right to
organize. I believe that organized labor helped to deliver us the
middle class, and I think that workers organized will be able to
rejuvenate our middle class and make these just and reasonable demands
a reality.
Mr. POCAN. Thank you, Representative Schakowsky, for your many years
of advocacy on behalf of the low-wage worker.
When you talked about businessowners, one of the things I think about
as someone who's been in business my entire adult life is just the fact
that you always call us ``job creators.'' I like to think of the
consumer as the job creator. When I have someone buying from my
business, that allows me to be able to hire someone. If we help people
have more money in their pocket, they're the job creators. Each and
every one of those people are the job creators we're talking about.
Again, thank you so much.
We've been joined by another strong progressive, Representative Rick
Nolan from Minnesota. I know that he also has been an outspoken
advocate when it comes to the plight of the low-wage workers, and I
would like to yield to Representative Rick Nolan from northern
Minnesota.
Mr. NOLAN. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to begin by commending and
complimenting the gentleman from Wisconsin, Congressman Pocan, for the
work that you're doing here in highlighting this important issue.
There's so much to be said that one is not sure where to begin. You've
provided a lot of the facts and a lot of the information, as have some
of the other Members here.
I'd like to just speak to the issue in a more general sense. To be
sure, what's happening in this country has to be reversed. The rich are
getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is
getting crushed. Corporations and banks are sitting on trillions of
dollars.
I'm a business guy. If there's a business opportunity out there, you
invest in it; but if the middle class is broke, can't buy the goods and
services, you're just going to sit on your cash and you're not going to
invest it if there aren't customers there for your product. This is not
only good for middle America and for poor people, raising the minimum
wage is going to be so important for our whole economy.
When I started my entry into the employment market, the ratio of
executive compensation to that of the worker was 25 to 1. I just read
recently today that the ratio is 273 to 1. To my point, the rich are
getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. We've just seen some
numbers on the percentage
[[Page H5501]]
of income that's earned by the upper 1 percent and by the upper 10
percent, and they're earning all the revenue.
I would like to suggest that everybody, if they haven't done it yet,
take a look at the Bill Moyers' film that was done in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, following the lives of two families. It was quite
remarkable. Hats off to Bill Moyers for his vision in understanding how
valuable a film like this could be because he followed two good,
hardworking families playing by all of the rules, doing everything
right, going to church on Sunday, not living extravagantly, no
speedboats in their driveway, living in modest housing in wonderful
modest communities.
He followed them as they were entering into the employment market 22
years ago. They had good-paying manufacturing jobs in the $25 to $30
range. They had benefits and retirement. Both families, all the mothers
and fathers, ended up losing their jobs, not through the failure to
show up to work, but because tax and trade policies had shifted those
manufacturing jobs overseas to another country. Through no fault of
their own, they found themselves unemployed.
Well, they struggled, and over a period of months they managed to
find other jobs. Now they were back down in the $12 to $16 range, and
in many cases they had lost benefits, but they were content. They just
took an extra job here and there and wherever they could. Wouldn't you
know, those jobs ended up being moved overseas because of our tax and
our trade policies, and this time they had an even harder time finding
employment. You could see all the stresses that--because Moyers was
going back and visiting these people every year or two and recording
what was happening in their lives, you could see the stress that was
being created.
In one of the families--oh, gosh, to see these two young kids in love
in their youth and to see the young man go into a tailspin of
depression at not being able to provide for his family and the conflict
that ended up in divorce. He was hanging out with buddies at the end
trying to pick up odd jobs here and there, and his wife is living in a
spare bedroom in an apartment with a friend. The other couple, the guy
is out picking up garbage. Then he showed what happened. They all lost
their homes. It also showed what happened to the entire community. All
the homes were boarded up. The neighborhood was in shambles because
they had all been foreclosed. It was just a classic example of how we
have failed these people.
In my judgment, here's what we did:
In our parents' time, at least my age group and maybe your
grandparents, the average life expectancy in this country was 47;
today, it's pushing 80. That is remarkable progress, especially for the
two oldest guys here in the freshman class. Then we did a whole bunch
of things. We looked, and the rivers and lakes were catching on fire;
acid rain was destroying the forest and the lakes. I had people in my
district whose lives were over. When they were 25 and 30 working in
boat factories and for want of ventilation, their lungs were full of
fiberglass, and so they couldn't breathe.
Anyway, we did all these things. We set up some good rules for
environmental protection. We set up some good rules for health and
safety. We insisted on Medicare for our elderly and workers' comp and
unemployment comp and Social Security. We put a tremendous amount of
burden for all of that on our business community, our manufacturing
sector. I know about that. I spent the last 32 years of my life in
business, manufacturing.
Then we said to all the manufacturers, Oh, by the way, now you're
going to have to go compete with people in countries where they don't
have to do any of that. It wasn't fair. It couldn't work. I'm not
necessarily faulting corporations for moving overseas, but I am
faulting the people responsible for the public policies that allowed
that to happen.
The first thing that we have to do here, in my judgment, is to raise
the minimum wage. It's not a cure-all, but it's a good beginning to put
some money back in the hands of low-income and middle America. There
are also so many other things that we need to do.
I just learned in one of our committees they were going to spend $89
billion in Afghanistan this year on infrastructure projects. I read in
the Times one project was $299 million. Fifty brave young American men
and women lost their lives securing the area for this hydroelectric
project. And for every one that is killed, there is another six or
seven that are maimed and harmed for life. Well, this project has now
been abandoned because the locals kept blowing it up as fast as we
could secure the area and build it.
We need to start reinvesting in our own infrastructure, our bridges,
our roads, our communities, our educational system, investing in our
people. We're going bankrupt here on these wars of choice, in this
nation-building abroad. We're destroying what made America a great
country, a middle class, a place where there was opportunity for
everybody. If you showed up and you wanted to work hard, there was a
job for you. I submit, in my generation, if you wanted to be a failure,
hell, you had to have a plan. There were just so many jobs and so many
good-paying jobs and so many opportunities. And that's what we're
losing, and that's what we have to get back to in this country. I think
we can start by raising the minimum wage.
I am so thrilled to be able to join you and my colleagues in urging
the leadership here to bring this measure before the Congress. Let us
have the debate. Let us have a vote on it. Let us see if we can't move
this country forward. Let us see if we can't do something for the
middle class here, and then let's follow that up with a good, healthy
debate on what kind of a trade policy we are going to have. Is it going
to be totally free, or is it going to be fair trade that recognizes the
accomplishments that we've made here with a determination to keep
moving that progress forward?
Also, let's have a good look at the tax policies, too. The fact is
anyone who has examined it knows that clearly the richest and most
powerful people in this country pay a much lower percentage of their
income in taxes than the average person. They just did an analysis in
Minnesota here a while back. The average person making between $30,000
and $50,000 pays 31 percent of their income in a variety of taxes--
Social Security, income, real estate, gas taxes, the whole works.
{time} 1630
The average millionaire is only paying 13 percent. Well, that's not
fair. Nobody's suggesting here that we should penalize the rich for
their success. On the contrary, we want everybody to be successful in
this country, but we also want everybody to pay their fair share. So
there's no one easy, simple solution to what we're looking at here, but
we can start with raising the minimum wage, and then let's go after the
tax policy and let's go after the trade policy. Let's institute some
fairness in this country. Let's rebuild the middle class, let's restore
the American Dream where there's opportunity for everyone--everyone
who's willing to go to work, play by the rules, work hard, and go to
work every day. That's the America we grew up with. That's the America
that we want to leave behind when we pass on to the big country. Thank
you.
Mr. POCAN. Thank you, Congressman Nolan. Again, thank you for your
many years of devotion to helping raise the economy for every single
person so they can really have access to that opportunity you talk
about. We have a lot to do in Congress. I think we will have a chance
to talk about trade and other policies later this year. But you're
right, the first and most fair thing that we could possibly do, that we
have control in this room to do, is to raise the minimum wage. The
President has asked for it. The Democrats have asked for it. It's time
we have a vote so we ensure that you don't live in poverty working that
job or working two jobs or three jobs trying to get by, because that's
exactly what happens.
I would like to yield to another colleague who has spoken out in his
district and across his home State of California not only on behalf of
low-wage workers but also someone who is a strong environmentalist.
I yield to Representative Alan Lowenthal.
Mr. LOWENTHAL. First, I want to say that I stand with you, and I'm so
glad that you've raised this issue about the crisis that is occurring
to working families in America, and, as was just pointed out, the
tremendous crash and
[[Page H5502]]
burden on the middle class, who are rapidly becoming low-wage workers
because of our policies in this country. I agree completely that the
first step that we have to do is to raise the minimum wage and have
that discussion and really provide and demonstrate that this Congress
really cares about working people in America. That's our first thing.
But I'm also glad that you've given me an opportunity this afternoon
to talk about one other issue that is not really directly related to
this issue, and that has to do with environmental issues.
I just want to report to my colleagues that later this month the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is the leading
international climate science body with over 195 member countries, is
going to be releasing a report which will predict that the planet's
average global temperature will increase by more than 2 degrees Celsius
over the next century. Not only does this report issue new warnings
about continued warming, but it asserts that the scientific community
can now claim with 95 percent certainty that the warming is a byproduct
of human activity.
Yet in this House of Representatives, the majority party continues to
ignore the warnings of the scientific community. Over the past 2 years,
this Congress has done absolutely nothing to address climate change.
Republicans in the House voted to overturn EPA's scientific findings
that climate change endangers health and the environment. They voted to
block U.S. participation in international climate change negotiations,
and they voted to stop the agencies from even preparing for the effects
of climate change.
Just yesterday, Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee
revealed that they are preparing to introduce legislation aimed at
preventing EPA from limiting the amount of CO2 emitted from
coal-fired power plants.
This is a mistake.
Mr. Speaker, we need to be moving ahead with policies aimed at
encouraging alternative sources of energy, preparing for the worst
effects of climate change. We need policies that are not written by the
coal lobby. We must take action. And I must remind you, just as you
raised these issues about the effect of the economy on our middle class
and our lack of preparation of working families, that the people that
are the most affected are the people that have the least ability to
deal with climate change, and they are working Americans.
It is all related. We must protect working Americans, and the way we
do it is to not only acknowledge some of the effects of climate change
but really to give working families the tools that they need so that
they can survive. And more than survive, so they can prosper in this
society. That's what this is all about.
I thank you for raising this issue, and I am glad to show support.
Mr. POCAN. I thank Representative Lowenthal. On behalf of the
Progressive Caucus, thank you for showing some of the other issues
we're working on. We're fighting for equality for every single person
across the country. We want everyone to have access to democracy. We
need to have meaningful campaign finance reform, from the Citizens
United decision to every single candidate for Congress and how we fund
our campaigns.
We need to make sure every single person has the right to vote in
this country, something that because of the recent Supreme Court
decision isn't guaranteed.
But one thing the Progressive Caucus today really wanted to
highlight, and we have made the case, why we joined so many workers
across the country in the month of August who are getting paid minimum
wage, who are barely getting by, who aren't being treated fairly in
their workplace: we literally have too many people who are paid too
little for the work they do. As Representative Nolan said, the rich are
getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. It's not a talking
point, it's a fact. It's the actual statistics that are out there.
If we're going to help people support their families, if we're going
to help support the economy, if we're really going to take people off
of government assistance, the very ones who are working and yet having
to be on government assistance because of the low wage they make,
there's a simple answer, and that's increase the minimum wage. That's
what we came here to talk about today, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the
Progressive Caucus. We appreciate having the time to talk about the
plight of the low-wage worker and why we need to raise the minimum
wage.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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