[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 11976-11980]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              MINIMUM WAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) is 
recognized for half the time remaining before midnight.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. So I have 25 minutes; is that 
correct?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Yes.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I would say to those 
who are going to speak to be aware of that so others get a chance to 
speak.
  I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. Thank you very much. The hour is late and the time is 
limited. Mr. Speaker, I rise, however, to briefly urge my colleagues to 
take action on raising the minimum wage. This is an action of fairness. 
It is the right thing to do. It is an issue of values. The American 
people believe it is the right thing to do. Eighty-six percent of them 
have said we ought to raise the minimum wage.

[[Page 11977]]

  This issue clearly illustrates the different priorities, it seems to 
me, between the Democratic and Republican sides of the aisle. We 
Democrats have been trying to get this issue on the floor for years 
now.
  Let us look at the facts, Mr. Speaker. Democrats have been fighting 
to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour over 2 years. 
Today, if the minimum wage were at the rate it was in 1968, we would be 
paying $9.05. We are not getting there, but we ought to do better than 
we have done.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the Republican side of the aisle is 
fighting us tooth and nail while attempting this week to bring up 
legislation once again that gives the heirs of the wealthiest families 
in America a break on the estates tax and drive our Nation even deeper 
into debt. That is right, while the working people struggle to make 
ends meet, doing what we expect them to do, this Congress is rushing an 
estate tax bill, what I call the ``Paris Hilton Tax Relief Act,'' to 
the floor.
  Of course, as usual, the bill is not paid for and continues the 
majority's fiscal irresponsibility and will increase our costs of 
borrowing by $280 billion over the next 10 years. We are borrowing 
because we have no money to give a tax cut, so we are going to have to 
borrow it from other nations.
  Last week, in the Appropriations Committee, I offered an amendment to 
the fiscal year 2007 labor-health bill. That amendment passed, raising 
the minimum wage 70 cents on each of the next Januarys, 2007, 2908 and 
2009, bringing to $7.25 the minimum wage. Seven Republicans, Mr. 
Speaker, on the committee voted for that bill, several of whom have 
tough races. So they were listening very carefully to their people at 
home; and their people, again by overwhelming majorities, say this is 
the fair and right thing to do.
  We thought we were going to consider that labor-health bill this 
week. It was announced it would be on the floor this week, but it was 
pulled. I am not sure exactly of all the reasons, but in part surely it 
was pulled because there was a question about the rule.
  I want to say, Mr. Speaker, when that bill comes to the floor, the 
rule vote will be a minimum-wage vote. And if you think that the 
minimum wage ought to be increased, if you think working Americans 
ought to be given a wage that gets them out of poverty, if you think 
that somebody who works in America ought to be able to support at least 
themselves, then you will vote against the rule, unless it gives a 
waiver for this amendment.
  Mr. Speaker, Mr. Miller and I, and the others who will speak on this 
floor, believe very strongly that in an America that honors work and in 
an America, the richest Nation on the face of the Earth, that is an 
example for the rest of the world, we ought to make sure that those who 
work, those who get up in the morning and work hard, play by the rules, 
as Bill Clinton used to say, ought to get a decent, fair wage.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that when this bill comes forward that every 
Member of this House will vote for a rule that ensures an up-or-down 
vote on raising the minimum wage in America for all our workers who 
work at that level. There are 6.6 million people, Mr. Speaker, 6.6 
million Americans trying to support themselves and participating in 
helping to support their children and their families. It is the right 
thing to do.
  Over 86 percent of Americans think it is the right thing to do and 
the House of Representatives ought to do the right thing.
  And, five of those seven Republicans who voted with Democrats last 
week flip-flopped. The other two failed to vote.
  And, the amendment failed.
  Mr. Speaker, the failure of this Congress to act on the minimum wage 
is a national embarrassment.
  It has been 9 years since we last raised the Federal minimum wage--
the second longest period without an increase since a minimum wage was 
first enacted.
  Today, the minimum wage is at its lowest level in 50 years, when 
adjusted for inflation.
  Had the minimum wage been indexed for inflation since 1968, it would 
be $9.05 an hour today--not $5.15.
  People who work full-time in the United States of America--the 
richest nation on earth--should not be poor.
  But in 2003 there were 3.7 million workers who worked full-time, 
year-round, and still lived in poverty.
  And, let's disabuse ourselves of this notion that ``no one'' really 
makes the minimum wage any more.
  Not true.
  In fact, a minimum wage increase would directly benefit 6.6 million 
low-wage workers--most of whom are adults who work to support 
themselves and their families.
  An increase would specifically benefit 760,000 single mothers who 
toil day in and day out, sometimes at 2 or 3 jobs to provide just the 
basic necessities for themselves and their children.
  Let's also dispense with the Republicans' favorite argument--that 
raising the minimum wage will somehow cost us jobs.
  Again, not true.
  We know that this argument is false because 20 States and the 
District of Columbia have raised their minimum wage above the federal 
rate.
  And, a study conducted by the Center for American Progress and Policy 
Matters Ohio shows the following:
  Employment in small businesses grew more (9.4 percent) in states with 
higher minimum wages than Federal minimum wage states (6.6 percent).
  And, inflation-adjusted small business payroll growth was stronger in 
high minimum wage states (19 percent) than in Federal minimum wage 
states (13.6 percent).
  Raising the minimum wage is an issue of fairness and an issue of 
values.
  A PEW research poll in December 2005 found that 86 percent of 
Americans support raising the minimum wage.
  The time to increase the minimum wage is long overdue, and Democrats 
are going to keep fighting for a fair wage for America's working 
families.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens).
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the fact that we have not had a minimum wage 
increase over such a long period of time, over $5.15 an hour, when we 
should be at $9 an hour, is reflective of the fact that our government, 
the decision-makers, this Congress, this administration are hostile 
towards poor people. We are hostile towards poor people. We have 
contempt for poor people.
  I have reams of statistics here which show the validity of increasing 
the minimum wage and how we are holding people in poverty, but I don't 
want to address those statistics except to say just one blunt fact: 
minimum-wage employees, working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, earn 
$10,000. That is $10,700 per year. That is $6,000 below the Federal 
poverty guidelines of $16,600 for a family of three. If you work 40 
hours a week, 52 weeks a year, you come in at that level.
  Now, we have, as a government and as an administration, we have had 
Alan Greenspan for ages, under Democratic administrations and 
Republican administrations, Alan Greenspan has come to Congress several 
times and testified he doesn't believe in a minimum wage. We shouldn't 
have a minimum wage. He's a disciple of Ayn Rand, who says government 
should not get involved in anything except defense. Only defense.
  Roll out the troops to defend the rich. Roll out the troops to defend 
our property. What happens is that the people who are from the working 
families, those that we have most contempt for and refuse to adjust our 
economic society so that they have a way to earn a decent living, those 
are the people who go off to fight. And I have statistics that in war 
after war, World Ward I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, 
the largest number of the casualties came out of the big cities of 
America, the slums, the people who were poorest, the working families. 
The same thing is true in Iraq.
  Let the rich go first in times of war. They are the ones that have 
the most to defend. Ayn Rand and Greenspan feel we should do nothing to 
help to force our government to protect the welfare of the poor. But 
those poor are to go off and defend the wealthy. The New York Stock 
Exchange has the most to lose if the government were to collapse. If we 
didn't have soldiers fighting and protecting the Nation, the rich and 
those who have contempt for the poor would have the most to lose.

[[Page 11978]]

  So I want the moral issue here to come forward, and let us look at it 
in the face and let the American people out there ask their 
Congressman, ask their President, Why do you want to hold people in a 
state of near chattel slavery? Why are you looking at the rest of the 
world and saying, well, they have low wages and China is way down there 
and we have to compete with China. If you compete with China, you end 
up having prisoners, prisoners manufacturing goods, and prisoners will 
be the basic labor force. We don't want to go in that direction.
  In America, everybody should have a chance to share in the prosperity 
that is possible here. Certainly those men and women who go off to 
fight our wars and who are very much a part of our society deserve to 
be recognized and protected and regulated, their economic lives, 
regulated in a way which gives them a chance to make it. All they want 
is a chance to survive and prosper like all other Americans. A minimum 
wage increase will allow us to do that.

                              {time}  2320

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the 
gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Scha-
kowsky).
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me 
and for holding this Special Order tonight on the minimum wage.
  We are not the only ones that are up at this hour and doing our work. 
There are millions of Americans around the country who are working. 
Some of them are working in all-night diners serving people food, maybe 
taking care of a crying baby right now for someone else, maybe cleaning 
up after some elderly person, and many of them are doing that just to 
try and make ends meet and really aren't because they make the minimum 
wage, about 7 million hard-working people, and anybody who thinks a 
minimum wage worker doesn't work hard hasn't done a minimum-wage job. 
Sixty percent are women; many are the heads of households and have 
children themselves that they have a hard time buying food for or 
providing health care for.
  In fact, a lot of those people who often are held in some contempt 
when they go to the store with food stamps, and who feel some 
embarrassment they have to come to get help from the government, put 
their hand out for assistance, and who are we really helping? We are 
helping the employers. We are subsidizing those employers with taxpayer 
dollars who don't pay a living wage or even close to a living wage to 
many of those workers.
  Today the Economic Policy Institute and the Center on Budget and 
Policy Priorities released a study entitled ``Buying Power of Minimum 
Wage at 51-Year Low.'' The title tells it all. It has been 10 years 
since the Congress voted to raise the minimum wage and nearly 9 years 
since its implementation. If we don't act this year, it will be the 
longest period of inaction and stagnation since the minimum wage was 
created.
  I know we have limited time, but I wanted to make a couple of points 
about what it really means to be on the minimum wage.
  According to a New York Times article reporting on a recent study by 
the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, last year was the first year 
on record that a full-time worker making minimum wage could not afford 
a one-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country. Anywhere in the 
country. Over the past 9 years, the minimum wage has not increased, but 
average rents have gone up more than 28 percent. In Illinois where I 
live, you need to make $15.44 an hour. In Chicago, you need to make 
$17.44 an hour in order to pay a two-bedroom apartment at fair market 
rent. That is three times the minimum wage.
  In the 9 years that minimum wage hasn't increased, average health 
care premiums have risen over 75 percent. What hasn't risen? Everything 
has risen. All of the basics have risen, but the minimum wage has not. 
It is just shameful. Here we are talking about tax breaks for the 
wealthiest Americans, talking about eliminating the estate tax for the 
Paris Hiltons of our country, and minimum-wage workers, people working 
right now at this late hour, make $5.15 an hour. We should all be 
ashamed.
  We can do that right away. We could do it tomorrow. We could raise 
the minimum wage and provide some level of dignity and relief for hard-
working Americans, and we should do that.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for allowing me to speak on this.
  Mr. MILLER of California. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts 
(Mr. Tierney).
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight also to add my voice to this 
important issue of the need to raise the minimum wage. The fact that 
the Federal minimum wage remains $5.15 an hour is a disgrace.
  I think it was stated earlier by Mr. Owens that someone who works 40 
hours a week, 52 weeks a year at minimum wage, they will still be 
$2,000 below the poverty level for a family of two and $5,000 below the 
poverty level for a family of three. There are several million 
Americans who fall into that category working full time year around and 
living in poverty. We should be able to do better in America. It is a 
matter of fairness. The American people do not want this kind of 
situation to continue.
  We can pass legislation to raise minimum wage any time we wish, 
except that the Republican majority does not wish to bring forward the 
bill that could do just that. It has been 9 years since we last raised 
the minimum wage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the real 
value of minimum wage is lower today than at any time since 1968. To 
have the purchasing power it had in 1968, the minimum wage would have 
to be increased to $7.54 an hour. If it were just to equal 50 percent 
of the average wage, as it did in the 1950s and 1960s, it would need to 
be increased to $8.20 an hour.
  If the minimum wage had grown at the same rate as chief executive 
officers' pay since 1990, the lowest paid worker in the United States 
would be earning $25 an hour. But since 1997, Congress has failed to 
raise that amount, relegating millions of hard-working Americans to 
poverty by freezing that rate at $5.15.
  Even The Economist, a notably conservative publication, is concerned 
about the fact that the gap in rich and poor exists. They are not 
concerned so much that the gap exists, but they are concerned that the 
way of bridging that gap is disappearing, and people no longer feel 
there are the rungs up on the ladder to get from one status in life to 
another.
  We should take notice that in States that have raised the minimum 
wage above the Federal level, jobs have been created faster than in 
States that have not raised that level. A case in point is Oregon. In 
1998, when its raised its minimum wage above the Federal level, wages 
and job opportunities increased. We should get the message.
  I would like to hear what Mr. Miller has to say, but please add my 
voice to the fact that we need to act immediately to raise the minimum 
wage.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield time to the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time, and thank you for your legislation, the Fair Minimum Wage Act.
  In 2004, 37 million Americans lived below the poverty line, a 1.1 
million increase from the year before. In 2004, 13 million children in 
America lived below the poverty line, and one in six children was poor. 
Yet here in the richest country on Earth, there is no guarantee that a 
full-time job will lift a family out of a situation of dire poverty and 
need.
  That is because the full-time minimum wage earnings of $5.15 an hour 
leaves a family of three 31 percent below the poverty line. As a matter 
of fact, Mr. Miller, if the minimum wage growth had kept pace with the 
increase in the pay levels of CEOs, the minimum wage today would be 
closer to $16. So this is a major issue of social and economic justice.
  I am pleased to stand here with my colleagues in support of 
Congressman Miller's legislation, the Fair Minimum Wage Act. It is time 
that we

[[Page 11979]]

raise the minimum wage for 7 million Americans. It is time that we 
recognize their right to fully participate in the economic life of this 
Nation.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all of 
my colleagues for joining me in this Special Order to try to bring to 
the attention of this Nation the unwillingness of the Republican 
Congress to raise the minimum wage for these workers that my colleagues 
have described.
  We are talking about the dignity of millions of workers. We are 
talking about millions of workers who must rely on the Congress of the 
United States to give them a raise, and this Congress has refused to do 
so and has refused to do so for the past 9 years.
  These are people who work very hard. They get up and go to work every 
day, just like we tell them we want them to do. We don't want them to 
get on public assistance. We want them to take responsibility, and they 
do. They work at some of the most difficult jobs in the Nation, and 
they do it every day, and at the end of the year they simply end up 
poor. They end up poor not because they are not tough people, not 
because they are not diligent, not because they are competent; they end 
up poor because they simply do not get paid enough, and this Congress 
is unwilling to lend a hand to them.
  When we refuse to pay these workers, we refuse them the dignity of 
that work and the recognition that we all understand. This country 
could not survive without their effort. They cook our food. They take 
care of our families and clean our offices. They do so many things for 
us without asking the question, and we come to expect it. It is just 
that way when we show up in the morning, it is just that way when we go 
home because of their hard work.

                              {time}  2330

  I dare say most Members of Congress couldn't toil at these jobs for a 
day, a week, or a month. And yet these people do it all year long. And 
they are now working for a wage that has its lowest value in 50 years. 
That is what we tell them that they are worth, that they are not 
entitled to that increase. And yet, do we see in just one week's time 
the Congress voted to give itself a COLA, turned around and we thought 
vote to raise the minimum wage in the Labor-HHS bill after 9 years, 
finally voting to raise the wage.
  But the Republican leadership interceded. When the amendment was 
offered today, this Republican Congress changed their vote and voted 
against the minimum wage. And the majority leader, Mr. Boehner of the 
Republican Party, is quoted as saying he is against it. It is not going 
to happen. It is not coming to the floor and he hasn't voted for 
minimum wage in 25 years of his public service, a boast of pride. I 
think it is a boast of shame.
  It is a shame this Congress doesn't understand its obligation to 
these workers who are in such desperate need. These are people who are 
trying to hold their family together. Again we ask them to take care of 
their children to keep them safe, to provide for the care for these 
children. Do you know how difficult it is to put a family together on 
$10,000 a year? At a time, as Ms. Schakowsky says, what is it that 
isn't going up? You have to pay the utility bills. You have to pay 
increased prices. These people have to work all week to fill the gas 
tank. All week. $5.15 an hour. How do you do this? How do you do this? 
You have got to fill the gas tank; you have got to drive the car. You 
have got to take care of your kids. You have got to buy groceries. You 
can't afford the rent.
  How is it they do this? How do they do it? One day is for gas; one 
day is for food. It doesn't work out. It simply doesn't work out. So 
what happens to these people? They become dependent on the taxpayer. 
Because the employers won't pay them the wages, the taxpayers come in 
and subsidize the jobs. They subsidize the jobs in terms of housing, in 
terms of free and reduced-price lunches, in terms of health care.
  So the employer simply decides that he won't pay this wage. We don't 
know whether or not he can afford to. That is the claim. But they end 
up just handing them off to the taxpayers. And even that voice of an 
industry that was doing the same thing at a different level, Wal-Mart, 
now has come out and asked for an increase in the minimum wage. Why? 
Because they realize that people who are shopping and earning at the 
minimum wage simply don't have enough to buy the necessities of life. 
Even at Wal-Mart with everyday low prices, as they advertise, people 
cannot do this.
  So that power, that bastion of capitalistic spirit is saying, if the 
Nation doesn't do something for these workers, growth is going to go 
down in the retail industry. You know what it means? You know what Wal-
Mart understands? They understand that this increase of the minimum 
wage would mean about $4,300 to these families, to these individuals, 
that that is real purchasing power and that is what the communities 
that Mr. Tierney cited and Ms. Schakowsky cited. What we see is jobs 
were created in those communities. Retail sales are actually up in 
those communities because people have money to spend. They can go to 
the grocery store. They can go and buy their kids clothes. They can buy 
them things for school.
  None of that is possible at the minimum wage. None of that is 
possible at the minimum wage. And that is why this Congress has got to 
understand the human dimensions of this. If the Republicans are so 
callous that they can't understand how hard these people work and how 
they toil, and they cannot figure out that these people are worth more 
than $5.15 an hour, something is terribly wrong.
  I heard one of the spokesmen for the Club For Growth today said there 
shouldn't be any minimum wage. Just let the marketplace set the price. 
Just let the marketplace set the price. And former Secretary Rice said, 
oh, you mean like it does for executive salaries? And the answer was 
absolutely, just like it does for executive salaries. Are those the 
same executives that were backdating the stock options? They didn't let 
the marketplace set their compensation. They backdated the stock 
options so they were guaranteed a profit in those stock options. No, 
they didn't rely on the market. They manipulated the market. They 
manipulated the market.
  And how is it that somehow they want to suggest that for people at 
the minimum wage that they are the ones that have to survive in the 
marketplace? The fact of the matter is the marketplace is exploiting 
these individuals by failing to pay them a decent wage so that they can 
raise their families.
  And it has got to stop. And it has got to stop here because the times 
has come to do this, to make sure that after 9 years, after 9 years of 
no increases, after six times of increasing congressional salaries, 
somehow something is terribly wrong for these individuals, and we have 
got to change that. We have got to make sure that that can't happen.
  The disparities are just unbelievable in terms of these people and 
the rest of the country. And we cannot believe that each of these 
children who are in these families are going to have the same kind of 
opportunity that other children have, and that is why we have got to 
raise the minimum wage.
  This is an issue of moral dimensions. It is way beyond the pay for 
the hours worked, the pay for the week's work. It is about whether or 
not we really do, in fact, believe in the value of work, whether we 
really do believe in the human dignity of these individuals who toil at 
these jobs. That is what this minimum wage is about. And it is a 
tragedy, it is a tragedy that the Republican leadership is now vowing 
that it simply will not be able to be voted on.
  This is a Congress. We have a bipartisan solution; clearly we have 
enough votes in the Congress to pass the minimum wage. But they are 
going to do everything they can from keeping that vote from taking 
place. So the democracy is not going to work its will. The House is not 
going to work its will. All of the jabbering that goes on about 
bipartisan government is not going to work its will because bipartisan 
government in the House of Representatives would vote to increase the 
minimum wage. But that apparently is not going to happen.

[[Page 11980]]

  But we have got to continue to struggle on behalf of these families, 
on behalf of their children, on behalf of this Nation in terms of human 
dignity.
  And I want to thank my colleagues for joining me in this Special 
Order to raise this issue with our colleagues and with people in the 
country.

                          ____________________