[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 8901]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       UNDERPAYMENT OF EMPLOYEES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Khanna) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KHANNA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express a simple principle: 
People who are working to bag groceries should not have to rely on 
government assistance, on nutrition assistance, to be able to buy 
groceries. Yet, across this country, there are thousands of workers who 
go and put in a full day's work yet can't afford the basic necessities 
of food and clothing.
  And it is the taxpayers, all of us, that bear the responsibility for 
the underpayment by large corporations. A Berkeley study has said that 
this underpayment by large corporations, low wages, is costing the 
American taxpayers $153 billion a year.
  I am proud to introduce the Corporate Responsibility and Taxpayer 
Protection Act with nine other colleagues that would require companies 
to be responsible for the underpayment of their employees. The idea is 
simple: If people are putting in a hard day's work and a full week's 
work, they deserve wages that will allow them to be part of the middle 
class. Too often, what happens is corporations, even if they are paying 
a $15 minimum wage, will adjust an employee's hours so that they don't 
get more take-home pay for the month.
  What this bill will do is say that a corporation that isn't paying a 
fair wage, where employees are relying on government assistance, the 
corporation is responsible for that government assistance. It is not 
the taxpayers who should be paying for that; it is the corporations who 
should be held responsible for the underpayment of wages.
  My hope is that none of the corporations will have to pay this tax. 
That they will do the right thing by working families in the middle 
class. That they will recognize that, in a time of record corporate 
profits, they can afford to pay a decent wage.
  I am hopeful that this bill will receive bipartisan support, because 
it is the very premise of this country that if you work hard, if you 
play by the rules, you should be able to be part of the middle class.

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