[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5133-5135]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              MINIMUM WAGE

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I want to take the time this morning to 
talk about an issue that has been brewing for a long time and is going 
to come to a head in the Senate sometime in the next several days, I 
hope, and it is one which compels us to do something, and that is to 
raise the minimum wage in the United States of America. We have waited 
too long to do this, and so we have to act on it as soon as possible.
  I wish to point out some of the data and some of the statistics 
confronting us right now. First of all, why should anyone be afraid of 
voting to raise the minimum wage? The American people are way ahead of 
us on this. Let's look at the polling data.
  This chart shows the results of a poll to increase the minimum wage 
to $10.10 an hour. It shows that 73 percent of all voters want to raise 
the minimum wage, and that 90 percent of Democrats, 71 percent of 
Independents, and even 53 percent of Republicans say we ought to raise 
the minimum wage. The vast majority of American people want to do this.
  This is again a chart from across the country. We have Arkansas, 
Florida, Georgia, my State of Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Wisconsin--
52 percent, 73 percent, 61 percent, and 54 percent. The vast majority 
of Americans in these States say: Yes, we need to raise the minimum 
wage, so it is not just one part of the country.
  Small business owners support raising the minimum wage. A poll done 
of small business owners shows that 57 percent say we should raise the 
minimum wage as opposed to 43 percent. Small businesses get it.
  The voters say that raising the minimum wage will help the economy. 
This comports with over 600 economists--including what several Nobel 
prize economists have said--who say that raising the minimum wage will 
boost aggregate demand and raise the GDP in America. The economy will 
benefit.
  Well, you know what. The American people get it. They may not 
understand all of the intricacies of economics and economic analysis, 
but they get it. Of those who were polled, 56 percent believe it will 
help the economy, 22 percent said they don't know, and only 21 percent 
say it will hurt the economy. The vast majority of Americans understand 
in their bones that raising the minimum wage is going to help the 
economy. Why? Because they know it will put more spending power in 
their pockets.
  When people in lower wage jobs get more money, what do they do? They 
don't go to Europe, they don't buy private islands and private jets, 
they spend it in the local economy, such as Main Street, where the 
small businesses are. Again, the American people get it.
  Why should we be concerned about this right now? The minimum wage has 
not kept up with average wages. In 1968, the minimum wage was 53 
percent of the average wage in America. Today it is 36 percent of the 
average wage in America, which is a tremendous decline between those 
who get the minimum wage and what the average wages are in America.
  Since 2009, the last time we had an increase in the minimum wage, 
let's look at what happened to the things that low-income people have 
to spend their money on. As I said, they are not renting private jets 
and they are not going to fancy restaurants to eat, but they do have to 
spend money on electricity, rent, auto repair, food at home, childcare, 
and mass transit. So the minimum wage has gone up 0 percent since 2009. 
Electricity has gone up 4.2 percent, rent has gone up 7.3 percent, auto 
repair has gone up 7.6 percent, food at home has gone up 8.8 percent, 
childcare has gone up 11.7 percent, and mass transit has had a 18-
percent increase. If you are a minimum wage worker, all of your costs 
have gone up, but your income has basically stayed the same.
  Here is another thing the American people get; they understand this. 
CEOs get big raises. Since 2009, the last time we had an increase in 
the minimum wage, CEO raises have gone up 23 percent, 14 percent, and 5 
percent, which is about 40-some percent. Minimum wage has stayed the 
same. Those at the top keep getting more and more and more, but low-
income workers get nothing. They keep falling further and further 
behind.
  How are we doing compared to other countries? We always say, we are 
doing all right. What are we doing compared to other countries? Here is 
an example of the national minimum wage rate in nominal U.S. dollars. 
Right now the United States is third from the bottom. There is 
Portugal, Spain, and there is the United States. Look at who is ahead 
of us: Austria, Japan, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Ireland, 
Belgium, France, Luxembourg, and Australia. Australia's minimum wage is 
$16.34 an hour in U.S. dollars. France's minimum wage is $11.98, 
Ireland is $11.16; New Zealand is at $10.96 an hour. We are way behind 
other countries in what the minimum wage is.
  Here is who benefits: Twenty-eight million workers will get a raise 
if we raise the minimum wage. Fifteen million women, thirteen million 
men, four million African-American workers--I will have more to say 
about that--7 million Hispanic workers, and 7 million parents will get 
a raise. Again, that is not just minimum wage workers. Almost everyone 
who makes less than $10.10 an hour--and many who earn just above 
$10.10--will get a raise. It will not just be those who are making 
$7.25, there will be a lot of other people who will also get a raise.
  That is another thing I have heard from my Republican friends. They 
say: Well, there are a lot of people who are making up to $40,000 a 
year and families will make more money. That is true. Raising the 
minimum wage will not just help people who are in poverty. It is true 
that it helps to get them out of poverty, but it also helps low-income 
families. Let's say there are two workers in the family and they are 
both low-income workers. They are making above the minimum wage, but 
they are low income. Perhaps you have a family with three kids and the 
breadwinner makes a decent income of $30,000 and the other makes 
minimum wage; that family too will get an increase.
  Here is what happens: About 21 percent of workers in America will get 
a raise, and almost everyone has family income of less than $60,000 a 
year. Eighty-three percent of workers who will get a raise under my 
bill are in American families making less than $60,000 a year; that is 
middle America. There are a few workers--17 percent--that economists 
tell us have family income over $60,000, that will also get a boost. 
But the majority are families

[[Page 5134]]

making less than $60,000 a year. It is a middle-class bill.
  Raising the minimum wage helps middle-class families, and it also 
does one other important thing--it helps kids. We don't think about 
this a lot. There are 14 million kids who will benefit from raising the 
minimum wage--14 million kids who are now in low-income families and 
struggling to get by.
  I thought it was interesting that the American Pediatric 
Association--the folks you take your babies to to see the doctor and 
stuff--says raising the minimum wage will help our kids. It will help 
them to develop better, have better oral health, better immunization 
rates, and decrease the rate of obesity and its complications. The 
American Pediatric Association Task Force on Child Poverty supports 
raising the minimum wage. They get it. They see these kids in poverty 
and low income. They know what is happening to them. By raising the 
minimum wage, you will help kids have a better life and a better start 
in life.
  I will talk a little bit about the basics of this bill. First of all, 
our bill, the Minimum Wage Fairness Act, would raise the minimum wage 
from $7.25 an hour--where it has been since 2009--to $10.10 an hour in 
three steps: 95 cents, 95 cents, and 95 cents over 3 years. We then 
index it to inflation in the future, so no longer will people who make 
the minimum wage fall below the poverty line. We keep it above the 
poverty line.
  The third thing our bill does is raise the minimum wage for tipped 
workers. Can my colleagues believe this? When I tell people this, they 
say: No, you must be wrong, Harkin.
  Tipped workers in America today have a minimum wage of $2.13 an hour. 
People say that can't be right. It is. It has been at $2.13 an hour 
since 1991. Imagine that--$2.13. Our bill would raise that from $2.13 
an hour, over about a 6-year period of time, to 70 percent of the 
minimum wage, which is much closer to what it was historically, before 
1991. So it raises it to 70 percent of the minimum wage over 6 years 
and then indexes that also in the future.
  So, again, why did we settle on $10.10 an hour? Why not $9? I have 
heard that bandied about a lot. Well, here is why we raised it: because 
we know where the poverty line is. Back in 1968 the minimum wage was 
120 percent of poverty. So we said: If we raise the minimum wage and we 
want to get it just above the poverty line and index it for the future 
so we wouldn't fall below, where would that be? Well, to get to 107 
percent of the poverty line--just above the poverty line--it would be 
$10.10. So, again, in 1968 the minimum wage was 120 percent of the 
poverty line. Now it is at 81 percent of the poverty line, and our bill 
would raise it to 107 percent of the above line for a family of three. 
That is why we raise it to $10.10--because it hits above the poverty 
line--and then we index it in the future.
  Let's look at the historic average on this. People say: Isn't that a 
big increase?
  Well, historically, whenever we have raised the minimum wage, the 
percent increase has been about 41 percent. Our bill raises it 39 
percent. So we wanted to keep it also within the boundaries of what we 
have done in the past. Going clear back to 1939, the average has been 
about 41 percent.
  My colleagues might notice that in the 1990s there was a 27 percent 
and a 21 percent increase. That is because for some odd reason we 
raised it twice in the 1990s.
  So we looked at the decades. Historically, we have raised the minimum 
wage about once every decade. If we look at it in the decades, we are 
again right about average: 150 percent, 33, 60, 81; in the 1980s it was 
only 16; then in the 1990s we had two steps, 54 percent. In 2007 when 
we passed it we raised it 41 percent. By the way, that was signed into 
law by a Republican President, not a Democratic President.
  So we wanted to get it above the poverty line, index it there but 
keep it within the boundaries of sort of what we have done in the past, 
and that is what this bill does. So it is critical to get it above the 
poverty line.
  The minimum wage has lost 32 percent of its purchasing power. So 
1968--if we had kept the minimum wage at the same relative status from 
1968 to now, the minimum wage would be $10.71 an hour. It is now $7.25. 
So in those years 32 percent of its purchasing power has been lost by 
minimum wage workers.
  Again, I want to cover tipped wages a little bit because that is 
another important part of our bill.
  People say: Well, tipped wages--people make tips and all that.
  We keep hearing from some entities that if we raise the tipped wage, 
it is going to hurt the economy and it is going to hurt the restaurant 
business. That is just not so. Look at the poverty rates.
  This chart shows restaurant servers, right here. If we take a State 
that has a $2.13 minimum wage, which is the Federal minimum wage for 
tipped workers--the poverty rate among tipped restaurant workers is 
19.4 percent. Some States have already said they are going to have 
their tipped wages the same as the minimum wage. They have done that. 
Where we have a full State minimum wage for tipped workers the same as 
everybody else, the poverty rate just among restaurant workers falls to 
13.6 percent.
  If we look at all tipped workers--and a lot of people think that with 
tipped workers, we are only talking about people who wait on tables. 
That is not so. Forty percent of all tipped workers are not restaurant 
workers. Right now, we are talking about pizza delivery people, parking 
lot attendants, people who work in hair salons, including manicurists--
that is about 40 percent of tipped workers.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent for another 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator for allowing me a few more minutes.
  The point being, if we look at all tipped workers in States with a 
$2.13 minimum wage, the poverty rate is 16.1 percent. Where a State has 
a minimum wage the same for tipped and not tipped, the poverty rate is 
12.1 percent.
  We also hear that job growth will be lost if we increase the minimum 
wage. Well, again, we have done some data-taking. If we look at tipped 
restaurant worker job growth, just from 2009 to 2012, in States that 
have a $2.13 minimum wage--tipped wage, the same as Federal--the job 
growth among restaurant workers has been 2 percent. In a State that has 
a minimum wage for tipped workers the same as everybody else, the job 
growth has been twice as much--4 percent. This is just among tipped 
restaurant workers.
  Look over here at sales per capita in restaurants. This is sales per 
capita in the State. In those States with a $2.13 minimum wage, $1.42 
per capita; in States with a full minimum wage, $1.68 per capita. That 
is why economists are saying raising the minimum wage and raising the 
tipped minimum wage is good for the economy. It increases aggregate 
demand.
  People say: Why would this job growth be more? Why would the sales be 
more in a State with a higher minimum wage for restaurant workers?
  Easy. If the restaurant workers themselves are making enough money to 
go out and eat or to do other things, they increase the wages for all 
of the other restaurant workers in the State. That is true. How many 
times have I heard from people who wait on tables, restaurant workers, 
say: I wish I could make some more money. I would like to go out to eat 
sometimes too.
  But they don't make enough money to do that. But in the States where 
they have a full State minimum wage, both job growth and sales per 
capita are much greater.
  Lastly, this is what is unconscionable. This is a restaurant worker 
in the District of Columbia. She got a paycheck, and her paycheck is 
for zero dollars and zero cents. Have my colleagues ever seen a 
paycheck for zero dollars? Why is that? Because she is a tipped worker 
making $2.77, and after they took out her FICA taxes and other taxes 
and things such as that, she got zero dollars. So therefore she had to 
rely upon only her tips.

[[Page 5135]]

  But what are tips? Here is what a lot of people don't understand. How 
do we classify a tipped worker? How do we do that? If a person makes 
more than $30 a month in tips, a person can be classified as a tipped 
worker. Think about that--if a person makes more than $30 a month. So 
if a person works 5 days a week for a month, that is $1.50 a day. If a 
person makes more than $1.50 a day in tips, a person can be classified 
as a tipped worker and be paid $2.13 an hour. We look at that and say 
that can't be right. But it is right. That is exactly what is 
happening.
  Tipped workers are getting to be at the bottom of the barrel. Yet we 
rely upon them for so many things--people pushing wheelchairs in the 
airport, valet attendants, parking attendants. There are a lot of 
people who are classified as tipped workers if they make more than $30 
a month in tips--$1.50 a day. Think about that--$1.50 a day. They get 
that, they get classified as a tipped worker, and they can be paid 
$2.13 an hour.
  So, again, the time has come. The people of America understand this. 
Working families understand it. This is a civil rights bill. It is a 
women's issue bill. I say it is a civil rights bill because if we look 
at the people who are going to get benefits--13 million people--28 
percent of African-American workers, 32 percent of Hispanic workers, 19 
percent of Asian and other workers will get a raise. This is a civil 
rights bill. It is a women's issue bill because 55 percent of the 
people in America making low wages who will get a raise are women. It 
is a children's issue. Kids who aren't getting adequate health care and 
nutrition and childcare are the kids of people making the minimum wage 
or tipped wages, even less. So it is a civil rights issue, it is a 
women's issue, it is a kids issue, and it is an economic issue for 
America.
  It is time to give America a raise and raise the minimum wage.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.

                          ____________________