[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 41 (Thursday, March 4, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1046-S1049]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, later today or tomorrow, as part of the 
American Rescue Plan, which we will be discussing in the next few days, 
which I happen to believe is the most significant piece of legislation 
to come to the floor of the Senate in decades in terms of addressing 
the crises facing working families--as part of that piece of 
legislation, I will be offering an amendment to raise the Federal 
minimum wage from $7.25 an hour, which I believe is a starvation wage, 
to $15 an hour over a 5-year period--5 years.
  I think there has been some miscommunication around here, and there 
are people who are saying it is going from 7.25 to 15 bucks an hour in 
1 year. Not true. It goes from 7.25 to 9.50, to 11, to 12.50, to 14, to 
15 dollars an hour. So anyone who says we are raising the minimum wage 
in 1 year, in the midst of a pandemic, to $15 an hour is simply not 
telling the truth.
  This amendment is similar to a bill which I have brought forth, the 
Raise the Wage Act, which I am proud to say has been cosponsored by 
some 38 Members of the Senate, and this is also similar to legislation 
which has already passed the U.S. House of Representatives. And I thank 
them, and I thank my friends in the Progressive Caucus in the House for 
doing a great job in pushing this legislation.
  I should also add, for my Senate colleagues, that this legislation 
raising the minimum wage is supported by some 300 national 
organizations, including the 12 million members of the AFL-CIO and 
virtually every major union in this country. This is something that 
unions like the SEIU, one of the largest unions in this country, have 
been fighting for, for a very long time.
  I should also add here that while raising the minimum wage is going 
to impact every low-wage worker in this country--because African-
American and Latino workers often are earning poverty wages--it 
significantly impacts the lives of the minority communities as well. 
That is why, among so many other organizations supporting this 
amendment, it is supported by the Leadership Conference on Civil and 
Human Rights; it is supported by the National Organization for Women 
because, again, when we talk about low-wage workers, we are talking 
about the minority community, we are talking about women; and that is 
why it is supported by groups like Unidos, the American Association of 
University Women, Indivisible, Justice for Migrant Women, the National 
Domestic Workers Alliance, and the National Women's Law Center.
  So, once again, this is legislation that will increase wages for 30 
million American workers. And if you ask me what the great economic 
crisis in our country is today, it is not just high unemployment; it is 
not just income and wealth inequality; it is that half of our people 
today, and before the pandemic, were living paycheck to paycheck. Their 
wages were so low that if they had a problem with their car or their 
kid got sick, suddenly they were in financial crisis
  And in the richest country in the history of the world, half of our 
people should not be facing economic desperation when their car breaks 
down. The reason for that is, significantly, that many millions of 
workers are earning starvation wages--and I underline that, starvation 
wages--in this country.
  I would love to hear anybody get up here and tell me that they could 
live on seven and a quarter an hour, they could live on 8 bucks an 
hour, they could live on 9 bucks an hour. You can't. And I have been 
all over this country, and I have talked to workers who are making 10, 
11 bucks an hour, with tears streaming down their cheeks, telling me 
what it is like to work for starvation wages and try to raise your 
kids.
  So the time is long overdue. The last time this Congress passed an 
increase in the minimum wage was in the year 2007--2007. It is time to 
raise the minimum wage. It is time to raise the minimum wage to a 
living wage of 15 bucks an hour.
  Now, later on today or this evening, as part of my support for this 
enormously important piece of legislation--and, as chairman of the 
Budget Committee, I will be speaking more about why we need to raise 
the minimum wage, but I want to focus on one part of the minimum wage 
bill that I have been hearing a little bit about in the last couple of 
days from some of my colleagues, and that is the provision to raise the 
tipped wage.
  Now, the tipped wage, so everybody understands it, is the Federal 
minimum wage that applies to waiters and waitresses, barbers, hair 
stylists, parking attendants, and others. Fellow Americans, do you know 
what that Federal minimum wage today is for that person who waits on 
your table at a restaurant? It is $2.12 an hour. Yeah, you heard me 
correctly: $2.12 an hour.
  And the proposal, as part of the minimum wage bill, the amendment 
that I will be offering, is that tipped minimum wage would go up from 
$2.12 an hour to $14.95 over a 7-year period, longer than the overall 
national minimum wage would go up. And this is something that clearly 
is desperately needed.
  Now, I know that, here in Washington, anytime we bring forth serious 
and important legislation for working people, the Big Money interests 
get to work, and all of their lobbyists, who make their six figures or 
seven figures a year, they get to work on Congress and tell you why you 
can't do anything to protect the most vulnerable and hard-hit people in 
this country.
  So the National Restaurant Association, they are a very powerful 
lobbying organization. I guess they have been enormously successful 
because we have not raised the Federal minimum wage since 2007. So the 
powerful lobbying organizations are going around, and they are telling 
Members of the House and the Senate that raising the tipped wage is 
opposed by restaurant workers and it would be harmful to the interest 
of waiters and waitresses and other people.
  That is not true. That is what lobbyists say, representing Big Money 
interests. That is what they are paid to say, but that is not what 
workers who wait on tables are telling us.
  One Fair Wage, a grassroots organization representing service 
employees--waiters, waitresses, and others--has just delivered to the 
White House a petition with 140,000 signatures on it from service 
workers who are demanding that they receive the same minimum wage as 
every other worker in this country. And polling among service employees 
and nonservice employees also supports the reality that Americans want 
our waiters and our waitresses and other service employees to get a 
fair and equal minimum wage, similar to what other low-wage workers are 
receiving.
  Now, I have heard from some who tell me that people who are waiting 
on tables--and, by the way, I was one of the worst waiters in the 
history of the country, but I was a waiter a long time ago. I know a 
little bit about it. I am hearing from some that waiters and 
waitresses, they are doing really well, making a whole lot of money, 
and they don't need an increase in the minimum wage.
  Let's be clear. When you talk about the restaurant and the hotel 
industry, you are talking about mass discrepancies in the kind of 
incomes that people receive. I will not deny it for a second. My 
daughter worked in a fancy restaurant. She did quite well.
  So if you are working in a hotel in a fancy restaurant where you have 
a menu that is quite expensive--you have got a $100 meal and your 20 
percent is 20 bucks, you are waiting on three or four tables--you are 
doing OK. I don't deny that for a second, and I wish those waiters and 
waitresses who work so hard continued success.
  But let us be clear. Not everybody works in a fancy restaurant or a 
big hotel which has a high-priced menu. You have got a whole lot of 
people working in diners, working in working-class restaurants where 
the menu is not that fancy, and maybe it is $10 for

[[Page S1047]]

lunch or $8 for lunch. Twenty percent of that is $1.60, on an $8 meal.
  Let us be very clear that, when we talk about waiters and waitresses, 
some 70 percent of tipped workers in this country are women, who suffer 
from three times the poverty rate of the rest of the U.S. workforce. In 
other words, women who are waitressing have a three times higher 
poverty rate than the rest of the U.S. workforce. Their tips are not 
keeping up with their needs. These women waitresses use food stamps at 
double the rate of other workers in this country.
  And, importantly, and increasingly so--amazingly, during this 
pandemic--waitresses suffer from the highest rates of sexual harassment 
of workers in any industry because they are forced to tolerate 
inappropriate customer behavior to feed their families through the tips 
that they get.
  We are hearing stories where people in a restaurant, guys in a 
restaurant say: Well, take your mask off. You want a tip; let me see 
how you look.
  And, clearly, this is unacceptable behavior.
  I also want to point out that the idea of moving tip wages to the 
same level over a period--in this case, 7 years--moving it to the same 
level as the overall minimum wage is not a radical idea. It ain't a 
Bernie Sanders idea. It already exists. I don't know if people know 
this. It already exists in seven States. So in seven States, right now, 
people who work in the service industry--waiters, waitresses, and 
others--are getting the same minimum wage as all the workers in those 
States. And those States are California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, 
Montana, Alaska, and Minnesota. Seven States already pay their service 
industry workers the same wages as they pay other minimum-wage workers.
  And I should point out that all of these States experienced a growth 
in the number of small businesses and restaurants after they abolished 
the tip minimum wage. So they abolished the tip minimum wage; it did 
not drive restaurants out of business. In fact, in those States where 
the tip minimum wage equaled the general minimum wage, we saw a growth 
in the number of restaurants.
  And, furthermore, to respond to another piece of misinformation, 
waiters and waitresses in these States received more in tips, not less. 
So the mythology that is going around here is that if we raise the 
minimum wage for waiters and waitresses, when somebody walks into a 
restaurant, they are going to be thinking, ``Oh, my goodness, this 
person is making 10, 12 bucks an hour; I am going to leave less of a 
tip,'' ain't the way the world works.
  Let me also say a word about how the pandemic, which has impacted 
workers in every sector--but how it has impacted tip workers. In many 
States where the tip minimum wage still exists, tip workers--and this 
is rather unbelievable--tip workers did not even qualify for 
unemployment. So we are talking now, in this bill, of substantially 
increasing unemployment--a $400 supplement--and we are talking about 
extending it to late August. But tip workers, whose minimum wage is so 
low, do not even qualify for unemployment.
  In an industry where more than 6 million workers have lost their 
jobs--and, obviously, we all know the restaurant and hotel industry 
have been terribly hard-hit by the pandemic--more than 60 percent of 
subminimum wage earners could not get unemployment benefits because the 
State and Federal Government denied them benefits for not making enough 
earned income. You all got that?
  So we are talking about the need--and I certainly agree with that--to 
expand and extend unemployment benefits, but you have a whole lot of 
workers who are earning starvation wages who are not going to be 
eligible for unemployment.
  At the same time, as restaurants reopen, the CDC has declared 
restaurants as the most dangerous place to work. We all know that. It 
is obvious. You are coming face-to-face with your customers. And now 
servers, in the midst of that, are responsible--you are a waiter, you 
are a waitress, and you are now responsible--for telling somebody who 
walks into your restaurant that they must socially distance themselves 
or wear a mask. It is not necessarily a comfortable position for a 
worker dealing with a hostile customer.
  I would also add, as all of us are increasingly aware of sexual 
harassment in general in this country, that the restaurant industry has 
some of the highest rates of sexual harassment. In a workplace where 70 
percent of the workers are women and where they rely on their customers 
to determine their wages because of tips, women are often expected to 
withstand sexual harassment in order to get those tips.
  In States where the subminimum wage has been eliminated, sexual 
harassment has been cut substantially because women no longer have to 
take that. It is not an all-or-nothing proposition.
  If you ask me again what the major economic crisis facing this 
country is, we know unemployment is sky-high, we know income inequality 
is unacceptable, and so many other factors are out there about the 
economy, but at the top of my list is the fact that tens of millions of 
workers in the richest country on Earth are barely making it. They are 
having a hard time feeding their kids. They are having a hard time 
paying their rent. Many of them get inadequate or no health insurance 
at all.
  Now, year after year, the American people--I think, correctly--
perceive that this Congress bows to the wishes of the rich and the 
powerful, gives tax breaks to people who don't need it. We deregulate 
companies that should be regulated, et cetera, et cetera.
  In this moment of economic and health crisis, now is the time for us 
to stand with working families, and the most important thing that we 
can do is to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. This is what Joe 
Biden believes. This is what the Democratic platform stands for, and 
this is what at least 38 cosponsors of the Raise the Wage Act also 
believe.
  So here we are at a pivotal moment. The working class is being 
decimated. People are struggling to feed their kids. We have to raise 
wages in this country, and we have to raise the wages of tip workers.
  I will be back later for more on this.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Van Hollen). The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed 
in the Record a letter dated February 22, 2021, about tip wages, signed 
by hundreds of organizations
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                February 22, 2021.
       Dear Members of Congress: The undersigned organizations 
     enthusiastically support the Raise the Wage Act of 2021, as 
     introduced in the Senate by Senators Bernie Sanders (VT) and 
     Patty Murray (WA), and in the House by Representative Robert 
     C. ``Bobby'' Scott (VA).
       If enacted, the Raise the Wage Act of 2021 would:
       Gradually raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 
     2025;
       After 2025, adjust the minimum wage each year to keep pace 
     with growth in the median wage--a measure of wages for 
     typical workers;
       Phase out the egregious subminimum wage for tipped workers, 
     which has been frozen at a meager $2.13 since 1991; and
       Sunset unacceptable subminimum wages for workers with 
     disabilities employed in sheltered workshops and for workers 
     under age 20.
       Since fast-food workers in New York City first walked off 
     the job in 2012, demanding a $15 minimum wage and the right 
     to form a union, workers across the country have completely 
     changed the conversation and politics surrounding the minimum 
     wage. Yet, 20 states still have not raised their minimum 
     wages beyond the paltry $7.25 federal minimum wage, and many 
     more have only marginally higher minimum wages than the 
     federal floor--despite clearly negative impacts on workers 
     across the country. Those negative impacts also 
     disproportionately affect Black and brown workers, who have 
     historically been segregated into the lowest paying 
     occupations in the U.S., and who are leading the Fight for 
     $15 and a union.
       Congress should heed the demands of workers of color, 
     communities, and their constituents and waste no more time in 
     passing the Raise the Wage Act. Raising the federal minimum 
     wage to $15 an hour and eliminating subminimum wages for 
     tipped workers, youth workers, and workers with disabilities 
     is a long overdue, human rights imperative and a critical 
     racial and gender justice issue--one that will make a crucial 
     difference in the lives of millions of workers and in 
     communities across the country.
       Gradually raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025 
     would lift pay for nearly 32 million workers--21% of the U.S. 
     workforce. Affected workers who work year-round would earn an 
     extra $3,300 a year--enough to make a tremendous difference 
     in the life of a

[[Page S1048]]

     cashier, home health aide, or fast-food worker who today 
     struggles to get by on less than $25,000 a year. A majority 
     (59%) of workers whose total family income is below the 
     poverty line would receive a pay increase if the minimum wage 
     were raised to $15 by 2025.
       Raising the minimum wage to $15 and eliminating subminimum 
     wages will be particularly significant for workers of color 
     and women workers, who have historically been pushed into the 
     most underpaid paid jobs through occupational segregation. 
     Passing the Raise the Wage Act would help narrow both the 
     racial pay gap and the gender pay gap. Of those whose pay 
     would increase, nearly 6 in 10 (59%) are women and more than 
     a quarter (28%) have children. One-third (31%) of African-
     American workers and one-quarter (26%) of Latinx workers 
     would get a raise if the federal minimum wage were increased 
     to $15. Almost one in four (23%) of those people who would 
     benefit is a Black or Latina woman. African-American workers 
     and Latinx workers are paid 10-15% less than white workers 
     with the same characteristics, so the Raise the Wage Act 
     would deliver the largest benefits to Black and Latinx 
     workers--about $3,500 annually for a year-round worker. The 
     Raise the Wage Act will also deliver increased wages to an 
     estimated 1.45 million LGBTQ workers and would reduce the 
     proportion of male same-sex couples living in poverty by one-
     third and female same-sex couples by almost one-half. There 
     would be similar reductions in poverty among LGBTQ people who 
     are not in same-sex couple households, with the largest gains 
     for those with the highest rates of poverty--Black, Latinx, 
     bisexual, and transgender adults.
       Raising wages has never been more urgent than during this 
     pandemic. Essential and frontline workers make up a majority 
     of those who would benefit from a $15 minimum wage. Members 
     of Congress should do more than pay lip service to front line 
     workers; they should make sure they get higher wages. The 
     median pay is well under $15 an hour for many essential and 
     frontline jobs; examples include substitute teachers, nursing 
     assistants, and home health aides. More than one-third (35%) 
     of those working in residential or nursing care facilities 
     would see their pay increase, in addition to home health 
     aides and other health care support workers. One in three 
     retail sector workers (36%) would get a raise, including 42% 
     of workers in grocery stores. More than four-in-ten (43%) of 
     janitors, housekeepers, and other cleaning workers would 
     benefit. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of servers, cooks, and other 
     food preparation workers would see their earnings rise by 
     $5,800 on a year-round basis. For 6 million tipped food 
     service workers, a majority female workforce, the subminimum 
     wage for tipped workers is a legacy of slavery that has been 
     a source of poverty, sexual harassment, and exposure to 
     health risks and hostile customers during the pandemic. Ten 
     million workers in health care, education, construction, and 
     manufacturing would see a raise--representing nearly one-
     third (31%) of the workers who would see a raise.
       Contrary to what opponents of a living wage would argue, 
     our economy can more than afford a $15 minimum wage. Workers 
     earning the current federal minimum wage are paid less per 
     hour in real dollars than their counterparts were paid 50 
     years ago. Businesses can afford to pay the most underpaid 
     worker in the U.S. today substantially more than what her 
     counterpart was paid half a century ago. The economy has 
     grown dramatically over the past 50 years, and workers are 
     producing more from each hour of work, with productivity 
     nearly doubling since the late 1960s. If the minimum wage had 
     been raised at the same pace as productivity growth since the 
     late 1960s, it would be over $20 an hour today.
       In fact, an immediate increase in the minimum wage is 
     necessary for the health of our economy. A $15 minimum wage 
     by 2025 would generate $107 billion in higher wages for 
     workers and would also benefit communities across the 
     country. Because underpaid workers spend much of their extra 
     earnings, this injection of wages will help stimulate the 
     economy and spur greater business activity and job growth.
       It is long past time to pass the Raise the Wage Act of 
     2021--and we call on all Members of Congress to finally give 
     nearly 32 million workers the raise they have fought so hard 
     to secure.
       A Better Balance; Action Center on Race & the Economy; 
     Adelante Alabama Worker Center; Advocates for Basic Legal 
     Equality, Inc. (ABLE); Advocates for Better Children's Diets; 
     Advocates for Justice and Education, Inc; AFL-CIO; AIDS 
     Alabama; Alabama Arise; Alameda County Community Food Bank; 
     Alianza Nacional de Campesinas; Amara Legal Center; American-
     Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC); American 
     Association of University Women (AAUW); American Federation 
     of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); American 
     Public Health Association; Americans for Democratic Action 
     (ADA); Americans for Tax Fairness; AnitaB.org; Asian Pacific 
     American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO.
       Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence; Asset 
     Funders Network; Autistic Self Advocacy Network; Be A Hero; 
     Bend the Arc Jewish Action; Bet Tzedek Legal Services; Black 
     Visions; Block Builderz; Border Workers United; Bridgeways; 
     Business for a Fair Minimum Wage; Business For Good San 
     Diego; CAAP; California Association of Food Banks; Campaign 
     for America's Future; Caring Across Generations; CASA; Casa 
     de Esperanza: National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families 
     and Communities; Center for American Progress; Center for 
     Disability Rights.
       Center for Economic and Policy Research; Center for Law and 
     Social Policy (CLASP); Center for LGBTQ Economic Advancement 
     & Research; Center for Popular Democracy; Center for Public 
     Representation; Center for Workers' Rights; Center on Policy 
     Initiatives; Centro de los Derechos del Migrante; Centro de 
     Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha (CTUL); Centro Legal de la Raza; 
     Change Machine; Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy; Chicago 
     Foundation for Women; Child Care Aware of America; 
     Children's Defense Fund; Civic Ventures; Clean Up the River 
     Environment (CURE); Clearinghouse on Women's Issues; 
     Coalition for Labor Union Women, San Francisco; Coalition of 
     Labor Union Women.
       Coalition on Human Needs; Coalition to Abolish Slavery & 
     Trafficking; Communications Workers of America (CWA); 
     Community Enabler Developer, Inc.; Community Legal Services, 
     Philadelphia; Community Organizing and Family Issues (COFI)/
     POWER-PAC IL; Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good 
     Shepherd, U.S. Provinces; Connecticut Women's Education and 
     Legal Fund (CWEALF); CRLA Foundation; DC Dorothy Day Catholic 
     Worker; Demos; Disability Rights DC at University Legal 
     Services; Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals 
     Project; Economic Opportunity Institute; Economic Policy 
     Institute; Encuentro; Endangered Species Coalition; Equal 
     Justice Center; Equal Pay Today; Equal Rights Advocates.
       Equality Labs; Equity Advocates; Etowah County Women's 
     Democratic Club; Etowah Democrats Club; Every Texan; Fair 
     Work Center; Family Equality; Farmworker Association of 
     Florida; Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin; Feeding 
     Texas; Fight for $15 and a Union; First Focus Campaign for 
     Children; Florida Policy Institute; Food Bank of Northern 
     Nevada; Food Chain Workers Alliance; Food for People; Food 
     Research & Action Center (FRAC); For Our Future Action 
     Fund; Freedom Network USA; Friends Committee on National 
     Legislation.
       Fund for Community Reparations for Autistic People of 
     Color's Interdependence, Survival, & Empowerment; Futures 
     Without Violence Gender Justice; Georgetown Law Center; 
     Granite State Interfaith Action Fund; Granite State 
     Organizing Project; Groundwork Action; Hawaii Appleseed 
     Center for Law & Economic Justice; Hawaii Children's Action 
     Network Speaks!; HBCU Collective; Hispanic Federation; 
     Hometown Action; Hunger Solutions Minnesota; Hunger Task 
     Force; ICNA Council for Social Justice; Illinois Hunger 
     Coalition; In The Public Interest; Indiana Institute for 
     Working Families; Indivisible; Island Empire Labor Council 
     AFL-CIO.
       Institute for Women's Policy research; International 
     Brotherhood of Teamsters; Islamic Relief USA; Islamophobia 
     Studies Center; Jobs with Justice of East Tennessee; Just 
     Economics of Western North Carolina; Justice at Work; Justice 
     at Work (PA); Justice for Migrant Women; Juvenile Law Center; 
     Kentucky Center for Economic Policy; Kentucky Equal Justice 
     Center; Labor Council for Latin American Advancement; Lambda 
     Legal; Land Stewardship Project; LatinoLEAD; The Leadership 
     Conference on Civil and Human Rights; Legal Aid at Work; 
     Legal Aid Justice Center; Legal Aid Society of the District 
     of Columbia.
       Legal Momentum, the Women's Legal Defense and Education 
     Fund; Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA); Long Beach 
     Alliance for Clean Energy; Louisiana Budget Projet; Macomb 
     Immigrant Service Center; Maine People's Alliance; MANA, A 
     National Latina Organization; Maryland Hunger Solutions; 
     Massachusetts Employment Lawyers Association; Massachusetts 
     Law Reform Institute; Meriden Congregational Church, UCC; 
     Michigan Immigrant Rights Center; Michigan League for Public 
     Policy; Michigan United; Milwaukee Area Service & Hospitality 
     Workers Organization; Minnesota Voice; Mississippi National 
     Organization for Women; Missouri Faith Voices; Missouri Jobs 
     with Justice; MomsRising.
       Mothers Outreach Network; Muslim Advocates; NALC; National 
     Action Network; National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of 
     the Good Shepherd; National Association of Councils on 
     Developmental Disabilities; National Association of Social 
     Workers; National Black Justice Coalition; National CAPACD-
     National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community 
     Development; National Center for Law and Economic Justice; 
     National Center for Lesbian Rights; National Coalition 
     Against Domestic Violence; National Coalition for the 
     Homeless; National Council for Occupational Safety and 
     Health; National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA 
     (NCC); National Council of Jewish Women; National Council on 
     Aging; National Disabled Law Students Association; National 
     Disability Rights Network (NDRN).
       National Domestic Violence Resource Center; National 
     Domestic Workers Alliance; National Employment Law Project; 
     National Employment Lawyers Association; National Employment 
     Lawyers Association--Eastern Pennsylvania; National Equality 
     Action Team (NEAT); National Farm to School Network; National 
     Health Care for the Homeless Council; National Network to End 
     Domestic Violence; National Organization for Women; National 
     Partnership for Women & Families; National WIC Association; 
     National Women's

[[Page S1049]]

     Health Network; National Women's Law Center; Native Women 
     Lead; NC-NELA (North Carolina National Employment Law 
     Project); Network for Victim Recovery DC; NETWORK Lobby for 
     Catholic Social Justice; New Earth; New Georgia Project.
       New Hampshire Youth Movement; New Haven Legal Assistance 
     Association; New Mexico Center on Law and Policy; New Orleans 
     Workers' Center for Racial Justice; North Carolina Justice 
     Center; Northwest Harvest; Northwest Workers' Justice 
     Project; Oasis Legal Services; Ohio Organizing Collaborative; 
     Oklahoma Policy Institute; One Fair Wage; One Fair Wage 
     Action; One Pennsylvania; Operation Food Search; Our 
     Revolution; Oxfam America; Parent Voices CA; Partnership for 
     America's Children; Pathways for Prosperity Coalition, 
     Fayetteville, NC; Patriotic Millionaires.
       Pennsylvania AFL-CIO; People For the American Way; People's 
     Action; People's Parity Project; Philadelphia Drivers' Union; 
     Physicians for Reproductive Health; Policy Matters Ohio; 
     Poligon Education Fund; Power Coalition for Equity and 
     Justice; Preble Street Maine Hunger Initiative; Progressive 
     Leadership Alliance of Nevada; Prosperity Now; Public 
     Citizen; Public Justice Center; RAISE High Road Restaurants; 
     Raise the Wage PA; Reframe Health and Justice; Restaurant 
     Opportunities Center of DC; Restaurant Opportunities Centers 
     United; RESULTS DC/MD.
       Results for America; Reviving the Islamic Sisterhood for 
     Empowerment (RISE); Rights & Democracy NH; Rights & Democracy 
     VT; River VAlley Organizing; ROC-Chicago; ROC-Minnesota; ROC-
     New York; ROC-Pennsylvania; San Francisco-Marin Food Bank; 
     Saverlife; Sciencecorps; SEIU Wisconsin State Council; 
     Service Employees International Union; Shriver Center on 
     Poverty Law; Sierra Club; Social Justice Associates of South 
     Church, Portsmouth NH; Southwest Detroit Immigrant and 
     Refugee Center; Southwest Women's Law Center; Step Up 
     Louisiana.
       TakeAction Minnesota; Tax March; Temp Worker Justice; 
     Terence Crutcher Foundation; The 99% Pennsylvania campaign; 
     The AIDS Institute; The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal 
     Analysis; The Employee Rights Advocacy Institute For Law & 
     Policy (The Institute); The International Union, United 
     Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of 
     America (UAW);
       The Legal Aid Society; The National Domestic Violence 
     Hotline; The New York Womens Foundation; The Partnership for 
     Working Families; The Rebuild, Overcome, and Rise (ROAR) 
     Center of UMB; The West Side Commons; The Women and Girls 
     Foundation of Southwest Pennsylvania; The Women's Building; 
     TIME'S UP Now; Ujima Inc.: The National Center on Violence 
     Against Women in the Black Community; UnidosUS.
       Unitarian Universalist Action New Hampshire; Unitarian 
     Universalist Justice PA; United Food and Commercial Workers 
     International Union; United State of Women; United 
     Steelworkers; United Valley Interfaith (UVIP); United Vision 
     for Idaho; Unity Fellowship of Christ Church NYC; URGE: Unite 
     for Reproductive & Gender Equity; Virginia Poverty Law 
     Center; Voices for Progress; Washington Lawyers Committee for 
     Civil Rights and Urban Affairs; Washington Wage Claim 
     Project; Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights; 
     West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy; Western Center on 
     Law and Poverty; Western Pennsylvania Employment Lawyers 
     Association.
       Wildfire: Igniting Community Action to End Poverty in 
     Arizona; Women Employed; Womenpreneurs; Women's Fund of Rhode 
     Island; Women's Institute for Secure Retirement; Women's Law 
     Project; WOMEN'S WAY; Worker Justice Center of New York; 
     Workers Defense Action Fund; Working Families Party; Working 
     Washington; Workplace Fairness; Workplace Justice Project at 
     Loyola Law Clinic; Worksafe; Young lnvincibles; YWCA USA; 
     ZERO TO THREE.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.

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