[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11656]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE

  (Mr. ELLISON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, an increase in the minimum wage is good for 
jobs. Minimum wage workers are adults who support families, and 
exorbitant CEO pay actually has been proven to hurt the performance of 
companies. Three new studies confirm these three points, and I would 
like to elaborate a little bit.
  Minimum wage workers are older than they used to be. Their average 
age is 35 years old, and 88 percent are at least 20 years old. Most are 
women. Women make up 48 percent of the workforce; yet 55 percent of the 
would-be beneficiaries of an increase to the minimum wage are women.
  Raising the minimum wage will not cost jobs. That is a myth. Here are 
the facts: 13 States raised the minimum wage in 2014, and all but one 
have seen employment gains. Now, that doesn't prove causation, but it 
does prove that this claim that minimum wage hurts jobs is false.
  It is also the case that we are often told that high pay for CEOs is 
just a reward and that it incentivizes them to work hard. High CEO pay 
does not increase profitability.
  In fact, in June, a study was published that looked at the long-term 
performance of 1,500 companies. That is a lot of data. They are finding 
that higher, exorbitant CEO pay hurts companies. Forbes says, ``How 
could this be? In a word, overconfidence.''
  The bottom line is that the myths that we live by are not true. Let's 
raise the wage and get some accountability at the executive level.

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