[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 17 (Wednesday, January 29, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S559-S560]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE MINIMUM WAGE

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, earlier this month we commemorated the 
50th anniversary of President Johnson's declaration of ``unconditional 
war on poverty.'' That war on poverty was a massively successful 
initiative. It helped tens of millions of Americans lift themselves out 
of poverty, reduced hardship, empowered people to build new 
opportunities for themselves and their future.
  We see some of the residue of this. Today, food stamps ensure that 
children do not go to bed hungry at night. The Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act insisted that all children, regardless of background, can 
learn and have an equal opportunity for education. Legal Services helps 
people with limited resources seek protection from exploitation. Low-
income families fight poverty in their own communities by helping to 
lead community action agencies. The war on poverty and the Great 
Society encompassed a tremendous list of achievements that I cannot 
even begin to do justice to today.
  However, we know we still have more work to do. Too many of those 
successful programs and policies have been reduced or rolled back under 
subsequent Presidents and Congresses. What is more, our economy has 
changed and in fundamental ways, with decades of waste, stagnation, and 
rising income inequality.
  Now we must urgently turn our attention to policies that will ensure 
that working families can still get ahead in America. We must recognize 
that tens of millions of working Americans struggle to put food on the 
table, a roof over their head, and pay their bills every month. This is 
a fundamental failing of our economy. It is something we not only have 
a moral obligation to fix but we have the ability to fix. We can do so 
first by raising the minimum wage, one of our Nation's simplest and 
most effective means of lifting working families out of poverty.
  I am so pleased President Obama has taken the first step in this 
effort. Last night at the State of the Union, he announced he would 
issue an Executive order that will require future Federal contracts to 
provide wages of at least $10.10 an hour to our Nation's contract 
workers for the Federal Government. I applaud President Obama's bold 
step to ensure that the Federal Government is a leader in promoting 
good jobs that pay fair wages. I think most Americans would agree that 
taxpayer dollars should not support companies that pay poverty wages. 
This Executive order is a strong step in the right direction. But now 
we in the Congress have work to do, to raise the minimum wage for the 
rest of American workers.
  Again, I am so grateful for President Obama taking a strong 
leadership position, as he did last night, in calling for Congress to 
expeditiously work to increase the minimum wage.
  We need to agree in this country that if you work hard and play by 
the rules you can earn enough money to support your family, keep a roof 
over your head, put some money away for a rainy day, have a secure 
retirement. The minimum wage played a critical role in doing that, 
which is why Presidents and elected leaders from both parties in the 
past have supported fair increases in the minimum wage. From time to 
time, we adjusted the minimum wage on a bipartisan basis to help 
working families keep up with inflation and the changing economy. But 
recently we have heard a new and disturbing set of talking points from 
our friends on the other side of the aisle. They claim that raising the 
minimum wage does not actually reduce poverty. They argue the minimum 
wage workers do not come from poor families or that no one stays at a 
minimum wage job long enough to be trapped in poverty.
  Those all sound good on the talk shows, but the facts simply prove 
those statements are not true. The fact is a majority of people who 
would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage come from low-income 
households. Many of them have been trapped in jobs at or near the 
minimum wage for years and years at a time. Indeed, when you listen 
more closely, the offensive underlying premise of all these arguments 
is that anyone can rise out of poverty if they just work harder.
  Tell that to Nereida Castro of Des Moines. She and her husband both 
work minimum wage jobs in the fast food and construction industries. 
They have five children to support. But Nereida says they live day to 
day because of their bills and expenses. She said her family ``has to 
limit many things to give to our kids to only make rent, to cover 
expenses. We have to limit everything.''
  A raise in the minimum wage would allow her to ``live a life where I 
don't feel like I'm drowning.''
  Tell that tale about ``you just have to work harder'' to Nancy 
Salgado, 27-year-old single mother with two kids, ages 2 and 7. She 
worked at McDonald's for the past 10 years but makes only $8.25 an 
hour. That is the minimum wage in her own State of Illinois. She 
struggles to be able to pay for necessities such as milk and shoes for 
her kids. She recently confronted the president of McDonald's USA, 
saying:

       I'm a single mother of two. It's really hard for me to feed 
     my 2 kids and struggle day to day. . . . Do you think this is 
     fair, that I have to be making $8.25 an hour when I have been 
     working at McDonald's for 10 years?

  For Senators and Representatives sitting comfortably here in 
Washington to preach to working mothers such as Nancy, struggling hard 
to get ahead, working 10 years at McDonald's--to tell them they are not 
working hard enough, that is beyond offensive.
  No one disputes that hard work is a big part of the path out of 
poverty, but you also need a basic foundation of economic security to 
start building that better life. How are you supposed to pay for a 
community college course on $7.25 an hour? How are you supposed to find 
a better job when you are standing in line at a food bank because your 
wages won't cover all your household expenses, and neither will your 
food stamps? How are you supposed to build a better life for your kids 
when you can't even find them safe childcare while you are at 
work? They just can't get ahead if their job traps them in poverty.

  It has not always been this way. We used to agree that minimum wage 
works. People who perform some of the most difficult and essential jobs 
in our society should not have to live in poverty. The minimum wage 
kept families above the poverty line in the 1960s and 1970s. In today's 
dollars, a minimum wage worker in 1968--when the minimum wage was 120 
percent of the poverty line--took home $10.71 an hour or $22,000 a year 
working full time.
  Since the 1980s, the minimum wage has not kept up. Today the minimum 
wage is about 80 percent of the level of poverty. This is how far we 
have come down. The same family whose breadwinner worked at a job 
making minimum wage in 1968--look at where they

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are--would be way below the poverty line today. It is no wonder working 
people have to turn to the safety net of food stamps and all other 
kinds of things just to help them get by.
  A recent study found that our taxpayers have to pick up the tab for 
millions of working families to the tune of about $240 billion a year 
for food stamps, Medicaid/CHIP, earned-income tax credit, and temporary 
assistance to needy families. I wish to make it clear that these are 
not people sitting at home watching TV. These are people who work, but 
they are making minimum wage. What we want and what they want is not to 
have the Government and the taxpayers pick up the tab. They want to be 
able to support themselves with the jobs they have.
  We have to rectify this. My legislation, the Minimum Wage Fairness 
Act, which I introduced--along with Majority Leader Reid and 
Congressman George Miller on the House side--will raise the minimum 
wage to $10.10 an hour in three annual steps and will get it above the 
poverty line by 2016 for the first time in over 20 years. That is what 
we are talking about--getting this minimum wage up.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate on both 
sides of the aisle sometime soon so we can bring this bill forward. I 
hope we can do it on a bipartisan basis and recognize it is indeed time 
to get families--working families--out of poverty by paying them a 
decent minimum wage.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). The Senator from Washington.

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