[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 36 (Thursday, February 25, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H710-H714]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
INCREASE THE MINIMUM WAGE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 2021, the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez)
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
General Leave
Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all
Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and
to include any extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from New Mexico?
There was no objection.
Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, for years, the Congressional
Progressive Caucus has fought to give working families the dignity they
deserve for the work they perform for our communities and our economy.
The increase of the minimum wage to $15 an hour is an important step to
accomplish this goal.
Our caucus is pleased that 14 years after Congress last increased the
minimum wage, we are finally close to seeing an increase become law.
The American Rescue Plan is intended to help those most impacted by the
pandemic's financial hardships. The increase in the minimum wage will
help those most vulnerable essential workers. It will put money into
the economy and into our local businesses. It will help jump-start our
recovery.
This is also about the dignity of work. This is a bill that will
grant people the dignity of work with a living wage. When we don't
provide a living minimum wage to American workers, they have to work
several jobs or rely on food stamps or other government subsidies to
put a roof over their head or food on the table.
Rather than subsidizing corporations who pay their workers poverty
wage, let's invest in families. Our workers put value and love into the
work they do day in and day out. But Congress hasn't raised the minimum
wage in over a decade. It is set so low, it is unsustainable for
anyone. It was unsustainable before the pandemic, and now it is
impossible for anyone to survive off the minimum wage alone.
If we don't raise the wage, we will be turning our backs on the
essential workers, on the same workers who have been keeping our
country running for the last year. We will be turning our backs on
working families.
Everybody--we hear it all the time--is thanking our essential
workers. Thank you, essential workers. We recognize now that those who
work in our grocery stores, who care for our elderly, who pick our
foods, who keep our schools and hospitals clean are maintaining our
country through this pandemic.
So while we are thanking them, we are thanking them for putting their
lives at stake every time they go to work. You know what? That thank
you is hollow if we don't back it up with action. That thank you is
meaningless unless we say we are willing to not only thank you, but to
actually pay you a wage that will allow you to live and pay your rent
and buy your food and take care of your children.
Finally, we are going to put that thank you into action. We are going
to do that tomorrow because tomorrow we are going to fulfill our
commitment to workers and we are going to include the minimum wage in
the American Rescue Plan.
So let's not lose sight either of the fact that this minimum wage is
about our values, but it is also about family values because this is a
bill, the American Rescue Act, that includes the minimum wage, that
values families.
{time} 1945
And why? Because we have all heard the stories of those families,
those parents--whether they are a single parent or two parents, or two
parents and their kids--are working. We have all heard those stories,
that the minimum wage we have now set at $7 in many places, that that
is not enough to pay the rent.
And so what do people need to do? They need to take a second job.
They need to work longer hours. They need to do overtime.
And what happens when you are working two jobs or overtime? Do you
then have time to coach Little League, to coach your daughter's soccer
team, to spend that extra time reading to your kids? The reality is you
don't.
[[Page H711]]
So if we value families, we will pay the parents enough so that they
have enough time to spend with their families.
Mr. Speaker, this is about taking families out of poverty. This is
about taking children out of poverty. And this is about allowing them
to come out of poverty through their employment.
Now, there are criticisms out there that raising the wage will close
businesses and that people will lose their jobs. I am here to tell you
from experience that that won't happen. We have had many economists who
have talked about the fact that that won't happen.
But let me tell you, I have got experience. Because in 2002, Santa Fe
increased the minimum wage. We called it back then--and that is why I
will sometimes fall into saying, ``a living wage.'' We increased the
minimum wage, and we did it because we wanted to help people. We wanted
to take the first step to bring people out of poverty.
So the living-wage effort that we did in Santa Fe was a broad
coalition that included businesses, it included grassroots activists,
it included governments, it also included the faith community and the
Catholic Church.
This faith community and the Catholic Church, they saw it as a
Christian value, that people deserve to earn a living wage for their
hard work. And the first 5 years after passage, not only were
businesses not harmed, but the number of establishments, the number of
small businesses in Santa Fe grew.
From 2012 to 2017, both the number of small businesses and the number
of people employed by small businesses in Santa Fe increased, all while
seeing higher wages every single year. Because what we did in Santa Fe
was, we said we need to make this decision now, and then do what we are
doing in our bill, which is index it so that we don't have to have this
fight all the time, and so that we don't set a minimum wage, which is
then a poverty wage, if we don't act.
So in Santa Fe, we did that. And it didn't kill job growth. It didn't
harm businesses, but it did help families. It helped stimulate our
economy. It made our communities stronger. It was so successful that
the county then adopted a similar living wage. And it was so successful
in the city and the county that the State of New Mexico raised the
minimum wage as well.
Here in the House, we will do what we did in Santa Fe and New Mexico.
We will do our job to provide workers across the Nation with a wage
that reflects the hard work that they do for us. We will thank them
with our legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I am going to also urge the Senate to lead with the kind
of empathy and compassion that our citizens and our constituents and
our communities expect of us. And if you lead with empathy and
compassion, you will also pass an American Rescue Plan that includes
the minimum wage.
Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be on the floor today with my Progressive
Caucus colleagues this evening.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).
Mr. LEVIN of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Leger
Fernandez.
Let me start by saying what an honor it is to serve with you, and I
think this is our first action on the floor. I am really glad you are
here, and I appreciate your leadership.
Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight because too many workers across the
country have not received a raise in far too long. They include the
frontline and essential workers who have kept our economy going during
the worst public health crisis in nearly a century. These workers
deserve better pay. That is why we must raise the minimum wage, step-
by-step to $15 an hour by 2025, and we have to start doing it right
now.
The Federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour for over a
decade. This is the longest stretch of time that we have not raised the
minimum wage since it was first introduced in 1938.
Mr. Speaker, $7.25 is far too low. That is not an adequate wage for
anyone, regardless of age or occupation. It is a poverty wage which
prevents workers from realizing the American Dream. By gradually
raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, 27 million low-wage workers
will get a raise--27 million people. We will lift nearly a million
people out of poverty, including a lot of kids. And we will put an
extra $333 billion in the pockets of poor and working-class Americans
and their families over the next decade.
This money will be a lifeline for the working men and women of this
country. It will go towards food. It will go towards rent. It will go
towards shoes, other basic necessities, and that will stimulate local
economies from coast to coast.
Some detractors say this policy will hurt the economy, and that it is
too much too fast. But that is just plain wrong. This proposal raises
the minimum wage responsibly over a period of 5 years. Its effective
date is 3 months after the bill's enactment, giving employers adequate
time to adjust even before the initial increase.
Mr. Speaker, 20 States just raised their minimum wage, going into
this year, 2021. And a total of 30 States--red and blue--now have
minimum wages higher than the Federal minimum wage. That includes my
home State of Michigan, which raised its minimum wage in 2018 and
currently has a minimum wage of $9.65. So the first increase under this
bill won't even raise wages in Michigan. It is very gradual.
We have not seen the catastrophic predictions of job losses and
higher prices on goods come to pass in States that have raised their
minimum wage. Representative Leger Fernandez just talked about Santa Fe
and her county and her State, but we have a lot of studies showing this
to be true from coast to coast.
Indeed, workers have got more pay to buy groceries, to pay for
prescription drugs, to shop on their local Main Streets. It is time to
make this happen for families in every part of the country.
Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is a commonsense policy that
every Member should support. It is the right thing to do morally and
practically for the economy, and I am glad that President Biden
included it as part of his American Rescue Plan.
Now, let me talk about how the American people feel about this. If
Congressional Republicans want to oppose this, they are really out of
sync with many of their own voters.
According to a recent poll from Data for Progress, 66 percent of
voters support increasing the Federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. In
addition, 57 percent of voters support using nonstandard Senate
procedures, like the budget reconciliation, to pass this minimum wage
increase.
Mr. Speaker, 20 States just raised their minimum wage, as I said, in
the last year, but let's focus on Florida.
In November of 2020, Florida voted for Donald Trump--I am not
positive of my data here. I think it was by 50.5 percent to 48 percent,
I think President Trump won Florida. Well, guess what? A $15-an-hour
minimum wage clocked Donald Trump. The same Republican voters and
Democratic voters and Independent voters all across Florida who voted
for Donald Trump by a slight margin, voted for a $15-an-hour State-wide
minimum wage by 61 to 39 percent. It was overwhelming.
In the midst of a pandemic that has killed 500,000 Americans and an
economic crisis that has the worst food lines in unemployment since the
Great Depression, corporations have been raking in billions while
workers are earning poverty wages and they are forced to live off food
stamps. That is why so many Americans support this.
Now, what about the argument that $15 an hour is too high?
By 2025, $15 an hour will be the equivalent of $13.62 in 2020
dollars. So it won't even be as high as it appears now, but it will be
the minimum amount that a single adult working full time will need to
earn a living and to cover core basic living expenses.
Now, check this out: Even in the area with the lowest cost of living
in these United States, Beckley, West Virginia, in 2025, a two-parent,
two-child household, in which both parents earn $15 an hour and pay
taxes, will be $360 short each month to cover basic living expenses.
The lowest-cost place in the country, $15 an hour in 2025 won't fully
cover basic living expenses.
Furthermore, if the minimum wage had kept pace with productivity,
with the increased productivity we create by working, since 1968--so
productivity gains from 1968 to today--if the minimum wage had
increased at the same
[[Page H712]]
rate, it would be over $20 an hour today. And we are proposing just $15
an hour.
So, Representative Leger Fernandez, I am so grateful for you bringing
me into this conversation. I feel like this is a question of basic
decency, of basic dignity, of the value of work in this country. Every
person who gets up and goes to work should be able to provide for their
family. And every person, just as you said, should have one job, and
that should be enough. One job should be enough. And by the way, that
includes everybody.
One of the great things about what we are doing is, we are getting
rid of subminimum wages across the board. No subminimums for tip
workers, who are overwhelmingly women and workers of color, no
subminimum wages for workers with a disability.
We have an opportunity here to bring so many people out of poverty,
to give a raise to 27 million people. It is time to do this. We have
got to pass it. The Senate has got to pass it. We have a President
named Joseph R. Biden, who is ready to sign it. Let's go.
Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Congressman Levin, I think you raised exactly
the points that we have been talking about.
This minimum wage, it should be a floor. And it is something that
everybody supports. Everybody supports it, whether you are a
Republican, whether you are a Democrat, and it is time to get it done.
Mr. LEVIN of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, let me just mention, the
gentlewoman is so right that it is a floor. One of these arguments that
we hear is, ``We don't want one-size-fits-all,'' right?
Well, first of all, as a labor lawyer, the minimum wage has been one
national wage the whole time since 1938. It is simply a floor of
decency.
And guess what? You already explained how in 2025, it is not very
likely that the minimum wage in Santa Fe, New Mexico, will be $15 an
hour. Because in Santa Fe and San Francisco and Los Angeles and New
York and Denver--and whatever--places all around this country--the odds
are overwhelming that they will have to raise their minimum wage beyond
that.
It is a floor of decency. Let's go. Don't you think? Let's go.
Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Congressman Levin, I love the way you describe
this as a ``floor of decency.'' And it is our moral compass that tells
us that we must vote for this and we must vote for families now. And so
we have heard what is happening in your State.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms.
Adams), so she can explain why this is supported in her district and
her State.
{time} 2000
Ms. ADAMS. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Leger Fernandez for
yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to give voice to the millions of
Americans who are calling on us to raise the wage.
Our minimum wage workers, many of whom we have come to call essential
workers, have a base pay of $15,080 a year. It doesn't take a Ph.D. to
know that you can't survive on $7.25. Yet, we expect millions of our
neighbors to do it, even during a pandemic and an economic crisis.
From the North Carolina General Assembly to the U.S. House of
Representatives, raising the wage has been part of my life's work. I
know how a couple of dollars an hour can be the difference between
prosperity and poverty. I know it because I have lived it. You see, my
mom was a domestic worker. She cleaned other people's houses so I
wouldn't have to, so I could focus on going to school and getting a
good education. Day in and day out, I saw that no matter how hard she
worked, her earnings were barely enough to get us by.
Colleagues, this is not because she didn't work hard enough. It is
because she didn't make enough.
Now, decades later, that reality has only gotten starker and the need
to address it more pressing. The minimum wage has been at $7.25 for
over a decade, the longest stretch in U.S. history.
Mr. Speaker, it is simply impossible to pay the rent and feed your
family when you are only making $1,250 a month. That is not far off
from the average monthly rent of an apartment in Charlotte, North
Carolina.
Make no mistake about it, $7.25 is a poverty wage. That is why it is
time to raise the wage to $15 an hour.
A $15 minimum wage would give 27 million low-wage workers a raise and
lift nearly 1 million people out of poverty. In my district, in
Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, it would mean giving a raise to
80,000 working women. 146,000 workers in the 12th District would see an
average pay increase of over $4,000 a year.
In this moment of crisis, as we grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, a
$15 minimum wage is more important than ever.
It is also important to note that essential and frontline workers
make up a majority of those who would benefit from this wage increase.
I believe in essential wages for essential workers. That is why we
can't pay an essential worker or any worker a poverty wage.
We must take action to deliver on our Nation's promise of equal
opportunity for all. In the strongest possible terms, I urge support
for increasing the Federal minimum wage to $15. If it can't happen in
tomorrow's package, I urge our committee and this body to take it up
next week because America cannot wait.
Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Congresswoman Adams, that was such a forceful
description of why it is so necessary for us to act, to act on this
moral imperative, which we are facing in this moment.
We have to remember this is a historic moment, so this is our time to
take historic action. When we say thank you to those essential workers,
we must express our gratitude in things like the minimum wage because
without that, then they are just words.
Ms. ADAMS. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman is exactly right. We have to
do it, and we have to do it now.
Essential workers need essential opportunities to get a decent wage
so that they can take care of their families. Working hard is not
enough if you don't make enough. Right now, folks who are making this
$7.25 do not make enough to make ends meet.
Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Working hard enough is not enough if you can't
make ends meet. Those are wonderful words.
Ms. ADAMS. That is right.
Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague from
Michigan (Ms. Tlaib).
Ms. TLAIB. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good colleague from New Mexico. It
is truly an honor to be able to serve with her.
Yesterday, she shared with me a young student in her district sent
her a beautiful letter. It was her first letter from a young child in
her district, and I lovingly called the child Teresa's truth-teller. I
hope it starts a trend in her community.
Mr. Speaker, to many of my colleagues here, I ask them all to please
come and tour my district. I lovingly call them 13th District Strong
because they never stop fighting for justice even when many here across
the country are always being asked to wait: wait for this, wait for
change, wait for us to be able to tackle poverty wages. Those that can
afford it, they wait, but our folks can't afford it anymore.
Raising the Federal minimum wage to $15 per hour has never been more
urgent for my residents, and it is long overdue. You see, I represent
the third poorest congressional district in the country. I want you to
think about that for one moment.
I have an elderly couple who has to melt snow in a bucket so that
they have the ability to flush their toilet because they can't afford
water. Water has been increased by 400 percent in rates. I have a
mother in my district who is pleading for me to find a place where her
daughter can eat twice a day. More than half of my residents pay a
third or more of their income for housing.
Our economy is structured in a way to benefit the few over the many.
It is no surprise that the many it is not working for are the working
people in our communities.
If we want to truly look and peek at the economy, measure the amount
of debt our families have compared to their incomes. Look at the
productivity numbers that are up compared to the wages that remain
stagnant.
At the same time that our people are suffering, large corporations
are seeing record-breaking profits, and CEOs are being paid record-high
salaries. It is simply unfair and immoral.
[[Page H713]]
Raising the minimum wage is also a matter of racial justice. Workers
of color are far more likely to be paid poverty wages than their White
counterparts, and Black and Brown workers are far more likely to be
victims of wage theft. I know because I used to represent them and
fight for their fair access to their wages that they have earned.
A $15 Federal minimum wage would increase the earnings of 38 percent
of Black workers across our Nation, a raise that will be life-changing.
It is time for all of us right here in Congress to earn our own pay
and deliver this overdue minimum wage increase without delay. I hope
folks understand, $15 is already the compromise. It is. If the minimum
wage had kept up with worker productivity, it would already be at $24
per hour.
Workers aren't asking for anything they aren't already earning for
their bosses. Without workers, there is no profit. It is high time for
us to end the pattern of exploiting workers, our neighbors, family
members.
Raise the wage. It is the right thing to do for our Nation. It is so
incredibly supported outside these Halls of Congress. Listen to the
people who sent us here. They are urging us to please stop waiting.
We have been given the power to change their lives for the better.
Mr. Speaker, I thank, again, my colleague from New Mexico.
Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, Congresswoman Tlaib talked about
the fact that now is the time. There is a call and an urgency for us to
do this because it is the time of the pandemic. It is the time of such
great suffering.
My father had a saying that when it was time to get important stuff
done, he would say, ``Ahora es cuando,'' it is time now. His saying is
ringing through your words, and it is calling upon us to say what we
need to say so that we do what we need to do and raise the wage. So,
ahora es cuando. It is, indeed, time now.
Thank you for explaining the urgency of what it is like to have to
boil your water because you can't afford the utility bill. That should
break all of our hearts, and it should urge us each to act and to act
now with the power that we have been given by our constituents.
I would now like to turn to one of my colleagues, one of our freshman
class from New York City, Congressman Torres.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Torres).
Mr. TORRES of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank Teresa for those kind
words.
I have the honor of representing New York 15, the South Bronx, which
is often said to be the poorest congressional district in America. The
unemployment rate in the South Bronx can be as high as 25 percent
compared to 5 percent in the Upper East Side, so we are living through
a tale of two cities.
But COVID-19 has shown the South Bronx to be the essential
congressional district. It is the home of essential workers who put
their lives at risk during the peak of the pandemic so that the rest of
us could safely shelter in place. We owe it to those workers to give
them a fighting chance at a decent and dignified life.
Our society will be judged by how we treat the most essential among
us. There is a gap between the value of what our essential workers do
and how poorly we treat them and how poorly we pay them. Bridging that
essential gap is one of the great moral imperatives of our time.
Raising the minimum wage is long overdue. The minimum wage in America
has been lagging behind inflation. It has been lagging behind the
productivity of the American workforce. It has been lagging behind the
historic average.
We have gone more than a decade, the longest we have ever gone,
without raising the minimum wage by even a cent. By every metric,
whether it is inflation or productivity or the historic average or the
length of time that we have gone without raising the minimum wage, it
is time to finally lift the minimum wage for the most essential workers
among us.
The statistics are clear that raising the minimum wage would lift
900,000 Americans out of poverty. It would raise incomes for 17,000
Americans.
For me, the minimum wage is exactly that. It is the minimum of what
we should do for our most essential workers. If we fail to raise the
minimum wage, then shame on us. Shame on us for failing to do right by
the essential workers who did right by all of us in our moment of
greatest need.
Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Torres.
What he has told us today is about the fact that there are districts
in the country, including mine, including so many that we have heard
about, where the minimum wage is too low. What we can't do is we can't
have a United States of America where what you earn depends on where
you live. That is what we are trying to do today, is say that where you
live does not impact what you earn or where you work.
Today, at a Senate hearing, Costco announced that it would begin
paying their workers a $16-an-hour minimum wage. They have already
recognized that that $15 level is too low, and they want to keep their
workers.
The reality is, we know that when people are paid well, then the
turnover is less. The commitment is better, and paying a minimum wage,
paying something where somebody can go home to their children, can put
that food on the table without relying on SNAP benefits, that they can
then say: I have done it. I can go work. I can come home.
And it doesn't matter whether I live in your district, whether I live
in Seattle, or whether I live in Coronado. It doesn't matter because
there is a floor that is the same across the country, and it is not a
poverty wage.
{time} 2015
What we have now is a poverty wage. That is very clear. If you cannot
use the minimum wage that we have now to pay your rent, to buy your
food, and to pay your utilities, then that is the equivalent of a
poverty wage. We know that. We know that because of the wages we have
across our country.
We have all worked. Congressman Torres, you have worked and looked to
see: When does the Community Development Block Grant come in? Does it
look like we are a distressed community or not? They look at what that
median income is, and if you are earning the median wage, you are in
poverty, right?
Mr. TORRES of New York. Mr. Speaker, she is exactly right. The
promise of America is that if you work hard and play by the rules, then
you should have access to a decent, dignified life. Too many of our
essential workers are paid starvation wages.
You have people who are doing everything right. They are working
their heart out for the country and for their families, and they are
struggling to survive because the cost of living in America, especially
in cities like New York, is spiraling out of control.
So the promise of America is broken as long as we continue to pay our
most essential workers poverty wages. It is no longer defensible.
Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, earlier we spoke about the fact
that to say thank you to these essential workers regularly and over and
over again but to refuse to pay a living wage, a minimum wage of at
least what we are asking for in this bill, is really not saying thank
you at all, is it? It rings hollow.
Mr. TORRES of New York. Mr. Speaker, we cannot simply honor our
essential workers with hollow words. We, as a country, have to put our
money where our mouth is and do right by them.
Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my
time.
Ms. LEE of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of raising the
federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. I want to thank my friend and
colleague Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez from New Mexico's 3rd
district for convening this special order hour. Raising the federal
minimum wage to $15 an hour is one critical step towards ensuring an
equitable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The federal minimum wage
has been at $7.25 for more than a decade. This is the longest period of
time without an increase in the minimum wage in US history. Inflation
has eroded this amount to a fraction of its previous value. We must
increase the wage and we must do it now.
Someone working a full time job at the current federal minimum wage
only earns $15,000 a year. That is a disgrace. A full time worker in
this country should be able to put
[[Page H714]]
food on their table and a roof over their head and be able to pay their
other expenses with their earnings. Many of these minimum wage workers
are essential workers, helping our communities endure this pandemic.
Raising the minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour isn't a cure-all.
In high cost urban areas, such as the one I represent in the Bay Area,
fifteen dollars an hour still is not enough to get ahead. But raising
the federal minimum wage has been shown to help lift wages across the
board for people at the lower end of the income scale.
A fifteen dollar minimum wage would give 27 million low-wage workers
a raise and lift nearly one MILLION people out of poverty. But this
isn't just an economic need--it's a racial justice imperative. Many
people of color have been paid poverty wages for too long--deepening
the long standing racial and economic divisions in this country.
African Americans, Hispanics and Asian Americans are all much more
likely to make only the minimum wage.
Recent polling shows that 72 percent of Americans, a vast majority,
support raising the minimum wage, including Republicans and
Independents. We need to ensure workers get paid living wages,
especially in times of crisis. Raising the minimum wage is a necessary
first step to growing our economy and recovering from this pandemic.
Additionally, it will also lessen the need for full time workers to be
receiving public assistance. When you raise the wages of the lowest-
paid workers, it is good for our communities and our country. Those
workers can then spend money in their communities, boosting local small
businesses and our entire economy.
____________________