[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17736-17738]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              MINIMUM WAGE

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I compliment Senator Kennedy on the 
statement he made regarding the minimum wage. I wanted to engage in a 
colloquy about that, but I was called off the floor on other matters.
  I think Senator Kennedy has made it quite clear that, rather than 
this being one of the throwaway issues that maybe we will address as we 
go

[[Page 17737]]

through the year, increasing the minimum wage for the people of this 
country ought to be No. 1 on our agenda. We ought to be doing this 
right now.
  We had the medical malpractice bill up earlier this week. We spent a 
couple of days on it. Everyone knew it was not going to go anywhere. 
Even by their own admission, some Republicans, in the newspapers at 
least, said it was a political exercise--according to some, in the 
newspapers. Whether it was or not, everyone knew it wasn't going to go 
anywhere. Yet here so many Americans are making the minimum wage which, 
I am sure was pointed out, is now less than the poverty level. It is 
about $4,000-some less--I think $4,500 below the poverty level for a 
family of three.
  It is unconscionable that over the last 7 years, the Congress--the 
Senate and the House together--has raised its own salaries, our 
salaries, by $21,000 a year. We have done that in the last 7 years. Yet 
a minimum wage in this country today is $10,500 a year, less than half 
of what we just increased our own salaries by over the last 7 years. 
That is what is unconscionable.
  These are working people; they are not on welfare. They are working. 
They are getting the minimum wage. Yet they are earning less than 
poverty level in this country. If nothing else, at least the minimum 
wage ought to get you above the poverty level. That is what we ought to 
be about.
  So I compliment Senator Kennedy for bringing this to the floor. I 
hope we can have this amendment on a bill here very soon, so we can 
express ourselves in a realistic way.
  Another myth on the minimum wage I hear all the time is that so many 
of the people making minimum wage are just part-time earners; they are 
young kids just starting out, on and on. I hear that all the time.
  The fact is that 70 percent of those affected by the minimum wage are 
adults, working adults; 35 percent--one out of three--are their 
family's sole earner. As Senator Kennedy pointed out, almost two-thirds 
of the time these are women. These are single mothers; they are 
working; they are making the minimum wage; and they are the sole 
supporter of their family. So these are not just young kids getting a 
minimum-wage job to supplement the family income. As I said, more than 
60 percent are women, one-third are mothers of children.
  So I thank Senator Kennedy for bringing this issue to our attention. 
I just find it unexplainable. How do you explain to people of this 
country we took all this time this year, we had this big tax break for 
the most wealthy in our country, yet we cannot even take a half a day, 
2 hours to debate and pass an increase in the minimum wage?
  President Bush has spent a lot of time talking about tax breaks, 
getting his tax break bill through--which helps mostly the most wealthy 
in this country, yet not one peep from this President in almost 3 years 
about increasing the minimum wage, not even one peep from this 
President on it.
  So I am hopeful sometime before we break in August we can bring this 
up and pass it and get it to the President's desk. I know that is 
probably wishful thinking but hope springs eternal. I think that is 
what we ought to be doing here in the month of July.
  One other thing: I said earlier we had the medical malpractice bill 
up. Really, what we ought to be talking about is the economic 
malpractice of this administration. That is what I call it--President 
Bush's economic malpractice. The victims of this malpractice are 
working Americans.
  I just talked about the minimum wage and the need to increase that. 
Look at the unemployment rate. It is now 6.4 percent, the highest level 
since April of 1994. That amounts to 9.4 million people looking for 
work who cannot find any. Under President Bush's leadership, we have 
lost 3.1 million private sector jobs.
  This week the Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray, offered an 
amendment to extend emergency unemployment assistance to the 1.1 
million long-term unemployed. These are people who have been laid off 
since the recession began--early last year. They made futile searches 
for jobs that were not there, and then, unfortunately, we lost the job 
assistance amendment Senator Murray offered.
  We are still losing jobs every month; 33,000 last month.
  The economy is limping along. Now we are going to have a $400 billion 
deficit facing us this year.
  I read in the paper this morning that we now have some estimates on 
what it is costing us in Iraq--$4 billion a month; $4 billion a month. 
I have to tell you, if history shows us anything, those figures are 
lowballed. If this administration--I say it about any administration--
comes up with figures like this, you know they are lowballing it. I bet 
you when the facts are in and when all the costs are in, by the end of 
the year when we look back at the cost of our being in Iraq, it will 
approach $5 billion a month. That is somewhere between $50 billion and 
$60 billion this year. That is not counting Afghanistan. Afghanistan is 
costing us somewhere over $1 billion a month.
  Again, I think that is lowballing it. I think it is probably a lot 
more than this.
  When you take Afghanistan and Iraq and put them together, you are 
talking about somewhere in the neighborhood of between $60 billion and 
$75 billion this year on top of a $400 billion deficit.
  What is the administration's response? Don't increase the minimum 
wage, pass record tax cuts for the wealthiest, and then they push 
through a sham Medicare prescription drug bill that is going to force 
seniors to pay more out of their pockets before they can get their 
prescription drugs.
  Right now there is a rule being written and proposed by this 
administration that will take money out of the pockets of hard-working 
Americans. This has to do with the issue of overtime pay.
  This spring, the Labor Department proposed a regulation that would 
exempt perhaps up to 8 million workers from overtime pay. Overtime pay 
means up to 25 percent of a worker's annual income. Who are we talking 
about? We are talking about nurses, police officers, firefighters, 
emergency medical technicians, retail managers, journalists, medical 
therapists, paralegals, managers of fast food restaurants, among others 
who will now be put in a different category. Just by a new regulation 
they are going to be put into a new category so they will not be paid 
overtime pay.
  Last week, 43 Senators sent a letter to the Secretary of Labor asking 
that the administration back off of this proposal. What does this 
proposal do? It expands the overtime exemptions by making it easier for 
employers to reclassify hourly workers and make them salaried workers, 
and then dramatically lowering the bar on which salaried workers are 
exempt from overtime pay protection. The result is millions of 
Americans earning--get this--more than $22,100 year--we are not talking 
about people making $100,000 $200,000 a year. We are talking about 
people making $22,100 a year and currently eligible for overtime who 
will be denied overtime pay under the proposed changes. What it means 
is the end of the 40-hour workweek. It means workers will spend more 
time away from their families because they will be forced to work 
longer hours.
  But guess what. They won't be compensated for it. At least now, if 
someone is spending over 40 hours a week working and they are away from 
their family, they get time and a half overtime and compensated, which 
may help make up for a little bit of time they spend away from their 
families. Now they will be working more than 40 hours away from their 
families, and they will not be compensated for that.
  It is not only bad economic policy, it won't create one new job. But 
it will also harm families by keeping the breadwinner away from their 
family for longer periods of time without giving them adequate 
compensation.
  According to the U.S. Department of Labor estimates, the proposed 
rule changes would mean between 2.1 million and 3.3 million workers 
would face unpredictable work schedules because of an increased demand 
for extra hours for which the employers would not have to pay time and 
half. It just makes sense.

[[Page 17738]]

  If you are an employer and the people working for you work over 40 
hours, they are paid time and a half. You have to think about this. 
Does that justify keeping them on at time and a half? However, if by a 
little stroke of the pen you can reclassify them from hourly wage 
earners to salaried wage earners, you can get them to work 45 hours a 
week and not have to pay them one red cent more.
  Again, with one stroke of a pen, I can get them to do more work and 
not have to pay them one additional penny.
  Why wouldn't you do that? Of course, you would do that.
  This regulation will open the floodgates for employers to help their 
bottom line by getting more work out of employees without paying them 
any more money. That is why we passed the 40-hour workweek. We are 
actually turning the clock back.
  Senator Kennedy pointed out this morning that we passed the minimum 
wage bill in 1938. By exempting these people from overtime pay we are 
turning the clock back even pre-1938 in terms of working conditions.
  According to the GAO study, employees exempt from overtime pay--
understand this--are twice as likely to work overtime as those covered 
by overtime pay. That is a GAO study. There you go. It makes sense. You 
are covered by overtime, and maybe you won't get that overtime. But if 
you are not covered by overtime, why not work a few hours extra every 
week because you are not being paid for your labor?
  Yesterday, in the House of Representatives there was an amendment by 
Congressman Obey of Wisconsin that would block the administration's 
proposal to deny millions of Americans overtime pay. Sadly, that lost 
by three votes. I was watching the vote last night. I noticed that they 
held the vote open. Actually, the proposal by Congressman Obey won. The 
vote was held open, and I saw some switches being made. Finally, they 
got three people either to switch or something. So the vote, if I am 
not mistaken, was 213 to 210.
  The proposal to block the administration from making these changes 
failed by three votes in the House.
  I think one of the reasons it lost was there was a lot of 
misinformation about what the amendment would do. I have an amendment 
that is almost a mirror image of what Congressman Obey offered in the 
House. I will be offering it at the first opportunity we have to do so 
on the Senate floor.
  Basically, my amendment would prohibit the administration from 
exempting more workers from overtime pay who are currently eligible 
under the law. That is it. It is very simple and very straightforward. 
I look forward to offering this amendment to protect the 40-hour 
workweek, and to protect hard-working Americans who sometimes are 
caught between whether they want to spend more time with their family 
or maybe work overtime. At least if they work overtime they get 
compensated for it. This amendment would protect them and their 
families.
  The administration's proposal will not, as I said, create one 
additional job. It will not do anything to put money back into the 
pockets of working Americans.
  Couple that with their intransigence on raising the minimum wage, and 
what you have is what I call ``President Bush's economic 
malpractice''--economic malpractice on hard-working Americans.
  We need a real job growth plan in this country. We need to increase 
the minimum wage. We need to provide a real Medicare prescription drug 
benefit. We need to provide real incentives for businesses to create 
new jobs--not these kinds of incentives that will not create additional 
jobs but will allow employers to work employees longer than the 40-hour 
workweek without giving them just compensation. It is bad policy. It is 
economic malpractice.
  I look forward to offering this amendment at the earliest possible 
time so the Senate can speak on this issue, and hopefully we will have 
enough votes in the Senate so the administration will back off this 
ill-timed and ill-advised proposal.
  I would like to know who really came up with this idea that somehow 
we are just going to, with the stroke of a pen, exempt people from 
overtime pay who are now getting it; we are just going to reclassify 
them. Well, I would like to know who that misguided ``genius'' was 
behind that decision. And whoever it is ought to have no place in this 
Labor Department or in this administration or anywhere in government.
  So I hope we can take this amendment up as soon as possible, and I 
hope the Senate will approve it.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.

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