[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2399-2400]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          A FAIR MINIMUM WAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Quigley) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call on my colleagues to 
join in the effort to pass the Fair Minimum Wage Act and raise the 
Federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.
  Fifty years ago, 200,000 Americans marched on Washington. Appealing 
to the soul of the Nation, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his fellow 
speakers charted out the long journey for equality and justice ahead. 
In the pamphlet promoting the March on Washington, they listed 10 
specific legislative demands. A number of these demands would go on to 
become some of the most significant achievements of the Federal 
Government in the postwar era: comprehensive civil rights legislation, 
desegregation of all school districts, an end to discrimination in 
Federal housing programs.
  It is clear that we have made progress on many of these issues, but 
for many of us here, the fight for these goals remains unfinished. Let 
us not forget, though, that the March on Washington was actually called 
the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
  Let us remember number eight on that list of demands: ``A national 
minimum wage act that will give all Americans a decent standard of 
living. Government surveys show that anything less than $2 an hour 
fails to do this.''
  On whole, the American economy has made tremendous strides in the 
last half century. Many in this Congress have been benefactors of that 
growth, but the American worker has been left behind. The $2 an hour 
that Dr. King and his colleagues called for would be nearly $15 per 
hour today when adjusted for inflation.
  Despite this fact, many of my colleagues will call the demand for a 
$10.10 Federal minimum wage unreasonable. Many will even say this 
demand for a reasonable wage is rooted in partisan politics. Mr. 
Speaker, this reasonable demand is rooted in the belief that American 
workers deserve more.
  President Truman said that minimum wage legislation was ``founded on 
the belief that full human dignity requires at least a minimum level of 
economic sufficiency and security.'' The call for a raise in the 
minimum wage is based on the fact that while a single parent making 
minimum wage earns $15,080 annually, that is still more than $400 below 
the Federal poverty rate.
  The call for a raise in the minimum wage is based on the fact that 
working 40-hour weeks 52 weeks a year, a parent still struggles to feed 
their family. Think about that during your next paid vacation.
  The call for a raise in the minimum wage is based on the fact that a 
single parent is overwhelmingly likely to be a single mother. Because, 
while women make up 47 percent of our workforce, they represent nearly 
two-thirds of minimum wage earners.
  Finally, the call for a raise in the minimum wage is based on good 
economics. I know full well that those opposed to a raise in the 
minimum wage say that any raise will reduce employment, and at a 
certain point, it could, but a modest raise to $10 an hour is nowhere 
near this theoretical tipping point, and more than six dozen economists 
agree.

                              {time}  1015

  In a recent letter to Congress, they explicitly said:

       Increases in the minimum wage have little to no impact on 
     the employment of minimum wage workers, even during times of 
     weakness in the labor market.

  The economic recovery has been a very long, slow road for low-wage 
American workers, and a raise in the minimum wage is the jolt our 
economy needs. Higher wages quickly turn into increased spending. 
Increased spending quickly turns into growth.
  But minimum wage legislation, like unemployment insurance, is merely 
the minimum we should be doing for the American worker. Let's remember 
that, during the March on Washington, the demand directly preceding the 
call for an increase in the minimum wage was demand number 7:

       A massive Federal program to train and place . . . workers 
     . . . on meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages.

  This body needs to turn its focus on advancing legislation that will 
create more American jobs and policies that

[[Page 2400]]

matter to American workers. I urge my colleagues to support the 
American worker. Join me in calling for jobs legislation and a 
reasonable raise of the Federal minimum wage.

                          ____________________