[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 4857-4858]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             RAISE THE WAGE

  (Mr. YARMUTH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. YARMUTH. Madam Speaker, during the past 40 years, we have made 
tremendous progress in America technologically, medically, socially, 
and--for many of our citizens--economically, but not if you are a 
family trying to get by on the minimum wage.
  In real value, today's Federal minimum wage is about 30 percent below 
the days when President Ford pardoned Richard Nixon and Cannonade won 
the Kentucky Derby.
  As American productivity has surged, the economic status of the 
American worker has weakened and, along with it, the capacity of 
American consumers to continue driving our economy.
  Even Walmart executives have admitted an obvious cause and effect. 
When their employees can't afford to shop in their stores, profits will 
suffer.
  Madam Speaker, a fair minimum wage has the power to make work pay a 
little better, to give families a shot at a stronger future, and to 
grow our economy substantially.
  It is a corrective to obscene corporate welfare, whereby American 
taxpayers must support low wage workers when their employers don't.
  It reaffirms the basic American idea that, if you put in 40 hours a 
week, you

[[Page 4858]]

should be able to put food on your family's table every day.

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