[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 6 (Monday, February 13, 1995)]
[Pages 193-194]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's Radio Address

February 4, 1995

    Good morning. This week marked the completion of 2 full years of 
economic reports during our administration. Since I took office 2 years 
ago, nearly 6 million new jobs have come into our economy, the 
unemployment rate has dropped more than 20 percent.
    Nineteen ninety-four was the best year for economic growth in 10 
years in the United States. And the combined rates of unemployment and 
inflation are the lowest they've been in 25 years. Ninety-three percent 
of our new jobs are in the private sector. That's the highest percentage 
of private sector jobs created in any administration in 50 years and 8 
times as many each month as were created during the 4 years before I 
took office.
    The majority of these jobs are in higher wage occupations. And while 
the economy lost 2 million manufacturing jobs in the 12 years before I 
took office, we've gained back 300,000 of those manufacturing jobs in 
the 17 months since our economic plan went into effect.
    I'm proud of this record. But I am very aware that far too many 
Americans have not benefited from this economic recovery. It used to be 
that a rising tide did lift all boats. From the end of World War II 
until the late 1970's, the incomes of all Americans rose steadily 
together. But since then, too many Americans are working harder and not 
getting ahead.
    Since 1979, the top 20 percent of our country has done quite well. 
But incomes from the rest of us have barely grown at all, or have 
actually dropped. Why has this happened? Pressures from the new global 
economy and the constant demand for new skills put a huge premium on 
education and training and make it harder and harder for people without 
the necessary skills to compete for rising incomes. This has had an 
impact on nearly every one of our families, making it harder to 
guarantee job security, harder to get a raise.
    That's why we push so hard to improve educational opportunities, 
including college loans for middle class people that are more affordable 
and easier to pay back. That's why I've proposed the middle class bill 
of rights which will increase income in the short and long runs by 
cutting taxes and promoting education and training, by giving a tax 
deduction for the cost of education after high school, by letting people 
withdraw tax-free from their IRA's for education costs, by making 
available to lower wage workers and unemployed people cash vouchers of 
up to $2,600 a year for more training.
    But even as we help Americans to gain the tools they need to compete 
and to raise their incomes, we have to reward their work by improving 
the wages of people who work full-time. I've worked hard to get higher 
paying jobs into our country through trade and increased investments and 
technology, but we have to do more. If we're really going

[[Page 194]]

to honor work, we have to show that anyone who takes responsibility and 
works full-time can support a family and can live in dignity.
    Those are the values at the heart of the New Covenant I've talked 
about for the last 3 years. Our job is to create opportunity for those 
who take responsibility to work hard and lift themselves up. Those are 
the values that have always sustained us and kept us a great nation.
    That's why we fought so hard for the earned-income tax credit in 
1993, a working family tax cut for 15 million families with incomes 
under $26,000. And that's why I now call on Congress to raise the 
minimum wage 90 cents to $5.15 an hour over the 2 years. In terms of 
real buying power, the minimum wage will be at a 40-year low next year 
if we don't increase it above where it is now at $4.25 an hour.
    As I told the Congress, already just this year, in 1 month of work, 
Members of Congress have earned more than full-time minimum wage workers 
earn all year long. Nobody can live on $4.25 an hour, and yet, 2.5 
million Americans are working for just that amount, and many of them 
have children to feed. Millions more are just above the minimum wage.
    The only way to strengthen the middle class and shrink the 
underclass is to ensure that hard work pays. Increasing the minimum wage 
is an important part of our strategy to do that. Congress is considering 
other economic strategies now as well.
    The test for all of these ideas should be: Do they reward work? Do 
they grow the middle class and shrink the underclass? Do they build 
economic opportunity in America? I believe, for example, if we're really 
serious about welfare reform, increasing the minimum wage will plainly 
help.
    More than anything, I want to give a genuine bipartisan welfare 
reform effort the best chance it can to produce a bill that we can all 
be proud of, a bill that will encourage work and responsible parenting 
and independence. But welfare reform can't possibly succeed unless the 
people we expect to leave welfare and go to work are rewarded for their 
labors.
    In 1990, Congress raised the minimum wage, just as I propose to do, 
45 cents a year for 2 years. Then, overwhelming majorities in both 
Houses with majority support from both political parties did that.
    If, in 1990, a Republican President and a Democratic Congress could 
get that job done, surely in 1995 a Republican Congress and a Democratic 
President can do the same, to uphold the value of hard work for the 
American people.
    Thanks for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 1:30 p.m. on February 3 in the Oval 
Office at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on February 4.