[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]




                              {time}  1545
                            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.

                              {time}  1600

  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-

[[Page H5499]]

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.

[[Page H5500]]

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.

                              {time}  1615

  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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