Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. And would the Chair let me know when there is 1 minute remaining?

Mr. KENNEDY. In the last few minutes, let me discuss what this issue is about. This issue is about John Hosier from Oklahoma who works at the Salvation Army for $6 an hour. He provides the family's sole paycheck. John and his wife Tina and their two children live on barely $200 a week. The family receives Government aid in the form of Medicare and food stamps but is still living on the verge of poverty. He said: It's hard on a small income . . . if it wasn't for the Salvation Army, I don't know where I'd be. This is a vote on John Hosier. This is a vote for Elizabeth Lipp of Missouri, a 21-year-old single mom. Elizabeth works two jobs, which, prior to a Missouri ballot initiative, paid $5.15. On weekdays Elizabeth worked as a housekeeper, and on the weekends she worked as a nurse's aide at a convalescent and retirement home. She lives with her mother and says: Getting by on $5.15 was a struggle. I pay out $75 a week alone for child care. Extra money would help her mother with the bills, help pay off the car, and help her put aside some savings. This is about Peggy Fraley from Wichita, KS, a 60-year-old grandmother. Her daughter, Karla, has five children, ages 6 to 17. Peggy works as a receptionist. Karla is a food service worker. Both women are working $5.15-an-hour jobs. The family is struggling to get by. Peggy explains: We can barely make it . . . but we've got each other. That's richer sometimes. There it is. Those are the people we are fighting for and standing with. Those are the people we believe ought to get an increase from $5.15 to $7.25. You can call that a paycheck. It is just a paycheck. What Democrats are fighting for is a just paycheck. Finally, we have to understand at the end of this debate, these are our fellow citizens, our brothers and sisters, citizens in the United States of America. These are men and women of dignity, who take pride in the job they do. It is a difficult job, but they still do it. They care about their children, they have hopeful dreams for their children. We are a Nation of many faiths, but all of the faiths talk about, and the Bible teaches the evilness of exploitation of the poor to profit the rich. All faiths say that is wrong. They all say that is wrong. St. Matthew's Gospel says: Whatever you have done unto the least of my brethren, you have done unto me. It is time we reach out to these men and women of dignity, these men and women--primarily women--who have children. This is a women's issue, it is a children's issue, it is a fairness issue. It is an issue of basic moral fairness. It is a civil rights issue because so many of those men and women are men and women of color. And, most of all, it is a fairness issue. In the United States of America, the richest country in the world, we are saying to those people who work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks of the year: You shouldn't have to live in poverty. The other side says no. The other side says no. We stand for those individuals. It is the right thing to do. It is a defining issue of fairness and decency, and it is an indication of what we as Americans feel about our fellow citizens. I hope we will get a strong vote in favor. Just remember, if there is any question in your mind, in the last week, the last 7 days, Senators have made $3,800. Every Member of this Senate has earned that, and Members are going to vote no? Members are going to vote no to increase the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 over 2 years? And we have just earned $3,800 in 1 week? Opposing the increase in the minimum wage is wrong. It is wrong. Six months after an election and 2 years before an election, it is wrong. It is wrong every single day of the year. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. KENNEDY. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the Senate. That was an extraordinarily strong vote. It certainly indicates that important progress is going to be made on this issue. I hope the sooner the better. We do have eight pending amendments that are germane. We are hopeful we can consider the DeMint amendment or a vote in relation to that. I understand there is a budget point of order on that that might be made. We look forward to trying to dispose of other amendments through the course of the afternoon. For the benefit of the Members, we have 30 hours now on this particular proposal. We will have, unless the leaders are able to work something out tomorrow, another cloture vote on the underlying legislation. We are prepared to move ahead on these amendments. I will talk to my friend and colleague, Senator Enzi, about them. Of the eight pending amendments, I believe six are under the jurisdiction of the Finance Committee. We will work that out with the members of the Finance Committee and inform the Senate as soon as possible thereon.

Mr. KENNEDY. I am glad to yield.

Mr. KENNEDY. To answer the Senator, this is the seventh day we have been on the minimum wage legislation. During this debate we have had 16 days where the Senate has addressed an increase in the minimum wage where we were unable to get a successful outcome. This is a subject that Members can understand quite readily. In one week since we started this, we have all received over $3,800 in pay ourselves, but we haven't increased the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 over a 2-year period. I share the Senator's frustration about progress, the time it has taken us to get to this point. I hope our leaders can find a pathway that can expedite the process. Of the remaining issues, one is a DeMint amendment, which we have already addressed, that is adding the minimum wage on to all of the States rather than following the minimum wage standard. The other is a Chambliss amendment that ought to be on an immigration bill that deals with the AgJOBS payment. That is suitable for that rather than being on the minimum wage bill. But we are going to deal with these issues and do it in an expeditious way and continue to move forward. Minimum wage workers ought to understand, though, that this was an important vote we have taken. I don't wish to be overly hopeful or optimistic, but I think help is on its way.

Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Senator.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, we are prepared to move ahead on the amendments. We have some that are in the Finance Committee, some in our HELP Committee. We are prepared to move ahead on the Chambliss amendment. We would hope that the Senator might come to the floor to debate it. We are prepared to proceed. Senator Feinstein is prepared to speak on it. I am prepared to debate it. The Finance Committee is in the process of working with Senator Kyl on some of the other matters. It is 3:15 in the afternoon, and we are prepared to move ahead. As I understand it, Senator DeMint chose not to offer his amendment. So the Chambliss amendment would be the one amendment that is germane postcloture. We are prepared to deal with that at this time. We invite the Senator to come and debate the amendment. We heard a great deal about how we want to move ahead, how we want to deal with the amendments. We are prepared to do so. I hope the good Senator will choose to come to the floor so we could continue to proceed with this legislation. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, if the Senator will yield, I thank the Senator from Montana for his statement in support of the minimum wage. He comes from a very special part of this Nation, the northern part of the Rockies. It has great agriculture and farmlands. It has a number of communities--Butte, MT--where there is mining and a number of smaller communities where people have worked in manufacturing. I thank the Senator for his statement and for his support. He has been on the floor a good deal of the time during the course of this debate, and having been just elected he brings to the Senate that fresh perspective of what people are thinking about in the heartland of the Nation. His comments bring additional strength to the argument in support of the increase. I express my appreciation to him for his good comments and statement in support of an increase. I thank the Senator.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Georgia. This is not a new issue. I know my friend and colleague from California is going to speak to the substance of it. The Senator from Georgia raised this during the last debate on the immigration bill. He has spoken about it a number of times earlier in the debate. These are complicated questions and issues that have enormous impact, these wage rate issues, in terms of agriculture across this country. He speaks for his State on this issue. I am grateful he is going to withdraw this amendment at this time. I am very hopeful we are going to get to the immigration issue in a timely way. We have it as a high priority on our side to address it. We are very hopeful we are going to get to it in March, this year, and we will have an opportunity both in the committee and on the floor to come to grips with the substance of this issue. I say, finally, the adverse wage goes back some 43 or 44 years. It goes back to a time when it was implemented and we had what they call the bracero program, which was a dark side of exploitation of workers from Mexico. It has been in effect, but the Senator is asking now that we get another look at this issue. I know the Senator from California will speak on the substance of it. This wage rate has been frozen at a level for the last few years as part of another bill, the AgJOBS bill. But this is an immigration- related issue because we are talking about workers who are going to come from overseas. The Senator has spoken about it. I know he feels strongly about it. We know we are going to consider it in the course of that discussion and debate. But I appreciate the fact that he is not pressing it on this minimum wage bill. I thank him for it, and we look forward to trying to find a solution to it in the future.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I understand the Senator from Arizona wanted to address the Senate. We also have, as I understand it, a request from the Senator from Alabama to speak from 4 to 5. So I would like to, if I could, speak and I will yield before 4 and request that the Senator from Alabama be delayed by a little. I think we were scheduled to come back to the minimum wage now. I don't mind starting 5 minutes after that. I would be glad to go 5 minutes early and make a request that we delay Senator Sessions' 5 minutes, and then the Senator from Arizona would have 10 minutes. I see my other friend here. It is going to get complicated after this. Senator Sessions, I think, is to be recognized.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I personally don't have any objection. As I understood it, as part of the general agreement on the minimum wage, Senator Sessions would be recognized at 4. I don't have any personal objection, and I will not object, and I will let those two Senators handle Senator Sessions.

Mr. KENNEDY. Well, Mr. President, I intend to talk now.

Mr. KENNEDY. I intend to talk for about 15 to 18 minutes, and then we will be on the minimum wage bill. I plan to speak on that minimum wage bill. I said I would end 5 minutes early to try to accommodate the Senator. We are scheduled to deal with the bill at 3:30. So I have recognition.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it has been a week now that the Senate has had on its agenda and before the Senate legislation to increase the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25. In that week, every Member of Congress has effectively earned $3,200, but we have not acted on an increase in the minimum wage for hard-working American people who are earning $5.15, to raise their minimum wage to $7.25. We have had 1 week of talking here on the floor of the Senate without action. It looks to me as if we are going to have, thankfully, as a result of the action of the majority leader, a vote at least on cloture to try to terminate the debate. But there will be additional procedural issues that will mean that those who are opposed to an increase in the minimum wage will be able to delay the increase in the minimum wage for another week. As the parliamentary situation is playing its way out, there will be the possibility of 60 hours after the vote on cloture, which will take us effectively through the end of this week. So that will be 2 weeks where the Members of the Senate have then earned $6,400, but we have been unwilling to either vote up or down on the increase of the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour. For the millions of people at the lower end of the economic ladder-- men and women of dignity who work hard, those who are assistants to our teachers and work in the schools of this country, those who work in some of the nursing homes and look after the elderly, many of those of the great generation that fought in World War II and brought the country out of the time of the Depression--they are still earning $5.15 an hour. They work in many of the hotels and motels that dot the countryside and the great buildings of American commerce--these people are working at $5.15. They will work for that tomorrow, and they worked for that the day before. And now, because our Republican friends refuse to permit us a vote, they are going to continue to work at $5.15 an hour. It has been 10 years. I went back and looked at the number of days we have tried to get an increase in the minimum wage since our last increase, and that was 16 days. So we have effectively been debating an increase in the minimum wage for 23 days since the last increase in the minimum wage, and there has been opposition from our Republican friends. It is true that we have disposed of some 21 amendments, but there are almost 100 left from that side. We don't have any. We will have some if they insist on some amendments. But our side is prepared to vote now. I daresay the majority leader would come out here, if the minority leader would agree, and set a time--I bet even for this afternoon, in an hour, 2 hours, perhaps even less. Perhaps some colleagues have been notified that we would not have votes today, so in fairness to them we could start the vote at the start of business tomorrow morning. There would not be any objection here. There are no amendments on our side. Still, there are 90 amendments on the other side, and they are exercising parliamentary procedures in order to get to delay the consideration of the minimum wage, including $200 billion in changes in Social Security--that was an amendment offered from that side--$35 billion in tax reductions and areas of education, some of which I support, but certainly with no offsets. They were never considered. They didn't include offsets, for example, with IDEA, the legislation that looks after the disabled children, or didn't increase the Pell grants. We didn't even have a chance to look at it. But no, no, let's do that, use this vehicle for that measure. Let's get those Members on your side and the Democratic side lined up to vote against providing additional assistance on education. Maybe we can use that in the next campaign. What about health savings accounts--that wonderful idea that benefits the medium income; the people it benefits are those making $133,000 a year. That is the medium income of the people who benefit from the health savings accounts. We are talking about raising the minimum wage to $7.25. They are talking about giving additional tax benefits to individuals in the health savings accounts of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The list goes on, Mr. President. These are matters which have absolutely nothing to do with the minimum wage. It is a delay, and it is to politicize these issues. We all know what is going on. The Republican leadership is opposed to the increase in the minimum wage. When they had the majority of the Senate, they constantly opposed any effort. Even though a majority of the Members of this body and the House of Representatives favored an increase, they refused to permit us to get a vote on it, and the President indicated he would veto it if we had. So that is where we are as we start off this week on the issue of the minimum wage. We find out our side--the Democratic side--follows the leadership that took place in the House of Representatives with Nancy Pelosi. They had 4 hours of debate, and 80 members of the Republican Party voted for an increase in the minimum wage. But here it is a different story. For the millions of Americans who say: My goodness, here is the House of Representatives; look, in 4 hours, it looks as if hope is on the way--and they didn't understand the strength of the Republican opposition to an increase in the minimum wage. I have seen it at other times. We have seen it at other times. It is always baffling to me, what the Republicans have against hard- working Americans. What do they have against minimum wage workers? We don't hear about it. They don't debate it. They will debate other matters, but what do they have against them? What possibly do they have against these hard-working Americans? They are trying to provide for families, play by the rules, and work 40 hours a week, and in so many instances they are trying to bring up children. What is so outrageous? Some say that if we raise the minimum wage, we are going to have the problem of increasing unemployment. We have heard that argument out here on the floor. Let me, first of all, show what has happened historically with the minimum wage. Until recent times, we have had Republicans and Democrats who supported an increase in the minimum wage, starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, then Dwight Eisenhower. They raised it $1 in 1955. Then President Kennedy increased it, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon supported an increase, Jimmy Carter, George Bush I, and William Clinton. That was the last increase. We voted on it in 1996, and it became effective in the fall of 1997. There were two different phases to it. First, people say: When you raise the minimum wage, look what is going to happen in terms of unemployment. Unemployment will rise. If we look at what has happened with unemployment at the time we passed the last increase in the minimum wage to $5.15 an hour in 1997, we can see there have been small increases, but the whole trend has been down. So much for the argument of unemployment. They say: That chart really doesn't show it because it doesn't reflect what is happening in the economy in terms of job growth. Look at what happened when we raised the minimum wage from $4.25 an hour to $4.75 an hour, and then we raised it again to $5.15 an hour. Look at that red line showing steady and constant job growth after an increase in the minimum wage. Look at what percent the minimum wage is. Increasing the minimum wage to $7.25 is vital to workers, but it is a drop in the bucket to the national payroll. All Americans combined earn $5.4 trillion a year. A minimum wage increase to $7.25 is less than one-fifth of 1 percent of this national payroll. It is less than one-fifth of 1 percent of this national payroll. And we have heard from those who oppose the minimum wage about all of these economic calamities. These are the facts in terms of the national payroll. It isn't even a drop in the bucket. It isn't even a piece of sand on the beach it is so little. Yet they say the economic indicators say this. Look what has happened to States that have a higher minimum wage than the national minimum wage, and see what has happened in terms of job growth. This chart shows 11 States plus the District of Columbia with wages higher than $5.15 an hour. Overall employment growth has been 9.7 percent; 39 States with a minimum wage at $5.15, 7.5 percent. Those States that have had an increase in the minimum wage have had more job growth, and it is understandable. The economic reports and studies show that if workers are treated fairly, there will be increased productivity. They are going to stay around longer and work. There will be less absenteeism, less turnover, more productivity, and you are going to increase your output. And this is all reflected in various studies. Look at small business. They say that is good for the Nation, but it doesn't really reflect what is happening to small businesses. This chart states that higher minimum wages create more small businesses. The overall growth in number of small businesses from 1998 to 2003 is 5.4 percent and 4.2 percent. These are the small businesses about which we heard a great deal. We have the small business exemption that exempts 3.6 million workers who are working for the real mom-and- pop stores, where their gross income is less than $500,000. This gives us some idea of the nature of the economic arguments. They don't hold water. They didn't hold water previously. We have seen a decline in the purchasing power of the minimum wage over this period of time. This chart is in real dollars. We can see where it was in 1960, 1965, 1970, 1975, going to 1980 and then a gradual decline. Starting in 1980, under President Reagan, it is going down. And we see the increases that came in the nineties under President Clinton. The purchasing power of $5.15, as this chart shows, was probably the lowest it had ever been. Its purchasing power has lost 20 percent. All we are asking is to get it back to $7.25 and to get the purchasing power back to where it was when we went to $5.15. Isn't that outrageous? What have we done in taxes for all the others? We are trying to restore the purchasing power. Let's look in the meantime at what we have done for companies and corporations. Let me go to this, Mr. President. Look at what has happened. Productivity and profits skyrocket while minimum wage plummets. Look at the profits. From 1997 to 2006 profits were up 45 percent, productivity was up 29 percent, and the minimum wage was down 20 percent. Historically, in the sixties, seventies, all the way up to 1980, when we saw an increase in productivity, that was shared with the workers. Companies, corporations shared the increase in productivity with the workers. No longer. That doesn't exist any longer. They take all of that productivity, and it is now an increase in profits. This chart indicates what has happened to the real minimum wage and what has happened to productivity. See, going back to the sixties, 1960 to 1965, even into the seventies, closer productivity, workers working harder, increasing productivity. They shared in the increasing productivity with wages. Not anymore. All of that productivity has been turned into profits. I want to spend my last few minutes--now that we have had the economic argument--reviewing quickly the most powerful argument, and that is what has happened in terms of these figures, how they translate into real people's lives. The charts reflect the growth of poverty in America. We are the strongest economic country in the world, and we find that between 2000 and 2005, we see that the number of people who are living in poverty in the United States of America has increased by over 5 million--5 million in the United States of America--during this period of the economy. I listened to the President talk the other night about how the economy is just going like gangbusters. Talk about the number of bankruptcies, talk about the growth of poverty--5 million. Let's look at what happened with regard to the number of children who are living in poverty. There were 11 million in 2000 and 1.3 million more at the present time. This country, of all the industrial nations in the world, has the highest child poverty in the world. Look at the chart and look at the end. Look at the red line. It is not even close. The United States of America has the highest child poverty in the world. That means the loss of hopes and dreams for these children, increasing pressures in terms of children dropping out of school because they are living in poverty and are not being fed in the morning. They are not getting good quality health care or any kind of health care. Their parents have two or three jobs and they are not getting the attention they need. The basic abandonment of so many children in our society. We read last week into the Record the New York Times article about the burden that is going to be on the American economy. That may get the attention of some of our friends on the other side. They expect that increased child poverty in this Nation is going to cost another $500 billion just because of what is happening to children in our society. Let me show what happens to child poverty in States which have a higher minimum wage. This isn't an accident. If the minimum wage is raised, it has an impact on child poverty. Alaska, Connecticut--all the way, the States that are listed here--New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, the State of Washington--are above the national average poverty rate. They have higher economic growth, higher small business growth, less child poverty. That is what we have seen. National average child poverty, again, the high minimum wage States, again, have lower child poverty rates. Very quickly, we have seen two nations of the world that have made child poverty a particular issue--Great Britain and Ireland. Now the minimum wage is $9.58 an hour in Great Britain. They brought 2,000,000 children out of poverty. They are a very strong economy in Europe. In Ireland, they have reduced child poverty by 40 percent. They are also a very strong economy. What we know is that the economic arguments don't hold water, and the adverse impact is particularly harsh on children. All during this time, we have seen this extraordinary explosion of tax breaks that have been given to large companies and small companies. They say these can't do it unless they get help. Over the last 10 years, there have been $276 billion in tax breaks for corporations and $36 billion in tax breaks for small businesses, and our Republican friends are insisting that we add more tax breaks if we want any hope of getting an increase in the minimum wage. Americans understand fairness, and this is not fair. Trying to hold up an increase in the minimum wage for hard-working Americans, who are working and playing by the rules, is not fair. Americans understand fairness. There are no economic arguments. We have been out here now for 7 days. I haven't heard them. I have been willing to debate any of those arguments. No, no, we don't get into the economic arguments. We used to years ago. Now we don't get into them. We just have to use this vehicle for all these other add-ons in order to basically frustrate this body from getting an increase in the minimum wage. As I said before, I don't understand what it is that our Republican friends find so obnoxious about hard-working men and women who are working at the minimum wage, but evidently there is something because they will not let the Senate of the United States act on this legislation. This is about fairness. This is about the hopes and dreams of children. It is about decency and fairness to women because women are the primary recipients of the minimum wage. So many of them have children. Eighty percent of those who receive the minimum wage are adults; 40 percent of those who receive the minimum wage have been receiving it for 3 years. This is an issue that women are concerned about, that has an enormous impact on children, that is basically a civil rights issue because minimum wage jobs so often are the entry jobs for men and women of color. But it comes back to fairness. It is basically the issue of fairness, whether we are going to be fair to hard-working Americans. Our Republican friends refuse--absolutely refuse--they refuse to let us get a vote on this minimum wage, and they have basically filibustered by amendment. As I said, we have over 90 amendments remaining. Democrats on this side are prepared, ready, and willing to vote. We thank our leader for bringing up this legislation. We are going to continue to battle on. We give assurance to those who are looking to us to represent them, to speak for them in the Senate, that we will speak for them. We will stand for them. They should know that we are on their side, and we don't intend to fail. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, as we have reached Friday in the consideration of the increase in the minimum wage, let me restate both by affection and respect for my friend and colleague from Wyoming. We have a strong personal relationship and a very good professional relationship. There are a few occasions when we differ, and this happens to be one of them, but it doesn't take away from the fact that I have enormous respect for his legislative abilities. We have worked in a number of areas, and we have every commitment to working together in so many of those areas of our HELP Committee. I know we don't have to repeat it, but it is true. Since we have a moment on a Friday, I wanted to express it because of my deep concerns about the direction of this underlying legislation. Let me state, with regard to these family issues, our committee is enormously interested in these family issues. The fact is, we have not addressed them in these recent Congresses. That happens to be the fact. We have not marked up those measures when Republicans were in charge of our committee. We didn't get them out on the floor of the Senate, so we have not considered them. But we are strongly committed to them. We are strongly committed. My friend and colleague from Connecticut, Senator Dodd--who is the author of the Family and Medical Leave Act--struggled 10 years before we ever could get that legislation passed because of the opposition within the Republican Party. He wants to extend that. It only applies to companies of 50 or more and leaves out half of all the workers. He wants to address that issue. The Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray, has had longstanding legislation providing up to 24 hours for individuals to go and work with teachers, engage in teacher conferences. I have engaged in legislation for sick leave for workers, which is enormously important to people here. Family-related issues are something in which we are enormously interested and concerned with. But I want to indicate we are also interested in flextime. But we also recognize that in this past Congress, this President eliminated overtime for 6 million Americans-- overtime--this administration. I am not going to take the time now, but I will certainly put the material in the Record about the proposal the Senator has just referenced--my friend, and he is my friend, the Senator from New Hampshire--talking about his flextime legislation. Here on page 2 in the legislation it says, ``notwithstanding section 7, an employer may establish biweekly work programs that--section (A) title I--that consist of a basic work requirement of not more than 80 hours over a 2- week period and in which more than 40 hours of the work period may occur in a week of that period.'' I believe this is the end of the 40-hour workweek, when your employer can make you work 50 hours in a week with no overtime. You say: No overtime? Where is that? If we go to page 7 of the legislation, under the definition of ``overtime,'' the term ``overtime'': ``when used with respect to biweekly programs means all work worked in excess of the biweekly work schedule involved in excess of the allocated 50 hours a week.'' So here we are basically saying if the employer makes the judgment and decision that you are going to work 50 hours, you are going to work more than 40 hours. Under the existing law you get overtime pay for over 40 hours. Under this, you work 50 hours and you don't get the overtime. Here it is in the legislation. Why do we have that on the minimum wage bill, I ask? It seems so accommodating. Can't we just accommodate family-related issues on it? Here we are trying to undermine it. The issue, of course, that is key in all these matters--you say: What about public employees? Public employees do. They have unions to protect them, and they have longstanding agreements about how and who makes the judgment and decisions in working out those flextime issues. It is an entirely different situation. I am glad to try to work that out, as we have with Members on family-related issues. But why should we have to do it on a simple item like the terms of increasing the minimum wage? Why is it? As I said yesterday, we are considering zero amendments on our side. We are prepared to vote. I bet I could even get the leader to say--well, probably not--to say we would go with a voice vote and approve it today. But, no, at the current time we have, to my knowledge, 109 amendments. They increase every day from the other side--109 amendments. Zero over here, 109 amendments. Another issue comes up, the issue of agencies violating different regulations, and if it is a first offense and exclusion of health and safety--look carefully how they define health and safety. This is an issue without a problem. Agencies have that flexibility today and use it today. What are we really trying to get at? Under the original proposal that was offered with regard to first offenses, it would have exempted 97 percent of all mine safety companies. You say let's redraft that now in terms of health and safety and see if you won't take it. Why are we doing that out here on this question? We have just done mine safety. If we want to deal with regulatory reform we are glad to do that. With regard to small business I thought that would be in the Small Business Committee's jurisdiction. Why should we be dealing with that when all we are trying to do is get an increase in the minimum wage? Then I hear: What is going to happen in terms of employment when we pass this increase in the minimum wage? One chart I didn't use the other day but I remember from the past is this one. The last minimum wage increase did not increase unemployment. These are the figures, going from 1997, September, all the way through the year 2000. It shows the last time when we went to $5.15 the gradual decrease in unemployment. If you look at it this way, we have the increase and the wage was $4.75 in the summer of 1996. Look at the increased job growth. Then we increased it in 1997 to $5.15, and it continued job growth. There are 3.7 million Americans who work in these small mom-and-pop stores who will never be affected because of the small business exemptions. It is $500,000. They are excluded. It is only those. These are the figures on it. We have gone through those in some measure. I still am distressed that we are spending this amount of time on this issue, and I wonder why it is the Republicans have all of these issues. If we had accepted all the amendments that have been offered by the Republicans, we would have added $241 billion in spending; $241 billion would have been added that would not have been offset. We are on the fifth day today. We will be on the sixth day on Monday, the seventh on Tuesday. When we had the increase in 1977, we spent 2 days on it. When we had the increase in the minimum wage in 1989, we had 2 days. In 1996, we had 2 days--4 hours in the House of Representatives. Since we have been debating this issue, the good State of Iowa, Monday night, had a debate in the legislature for the increase in the minimum wage. They passed it. They considered it in the Senate, debated it, and passed it, and the new Governor of Iowa is signing the increase in the minimum wage today. This is what is happening out there. This is part of what the American people are wondering about regarding this institution: Why in a State it takes 3 days to get it and other times it has taken a couple of days to consider this. It is a very simple matter: just raise the minimum wage to $7.25 from $5.15. We are in day 5, Monday it will be day 6, vote on cloture on day 7. With the 30 hours it will continue on into the better part of next week. Why does it take so long for this institution when all the amendments are over on this side, from the Republicans? That happens to be the fact. We debated education. It is interesting. Our committee deals with education as the appropriations committee for education. Finance has some provisions in there with regard to the tax provisions. We have important education legislation coming up. We have worked out higher education legislation in our committee. There are still a few areas in terms of the loan programs we still have to work out. We are working with the administration on the K-12 program. But now we have dropped in here $35 billion in terms of education credits. There is nothing on the IDEA Program--nothing. No help and assistance on IDEA. No help and assistance in increasing Pell programs. They selected $35 billion for whatever they wanted on education to challenge us to vote against that particular proposal. Is that it? The underlying bill is to try to get an increase in the minimum wage. I am glad to debate education. I was so interested in this because last year we increased the scholarship programs by $12 billion for students, and it went to conference and the Republican leadership took all $12 billion and put it for taxes. I can't scarcely remember any of those people who were arguing yesterday for increasing help and assistance for the students raising their voice let alone their vote in opposition. Or, when we added the funding, or tried to add the funding to the budget last year, I don't remember any of those speaking out. Twelve billion dollars it would have added. I don't remember any of those voices out there. But they suddenly want to have a long debate on that program. Now we want to have a long debate on health savings accounts. The average user of health savings accounts earns $133,000 a year, and three-quarters of those who had the health savings accounts had insurance before they had them. I thought the question today was to get to the uninsured, not the wealthy who already had insurance. That is coming from the other side. Why on the minimum wage bill? I am glad to debate that issue, but why on the minimum wage? Why hold up another day for workers? That is what is happening. Every day we are denying these workers, every single day, every hour we are denying these workers an increase in the minimum wage. Make no mistake who is doing that--109 amendments from that side and zero from this side. You can say: We want to just have a little fair opportunity to discuss these. Come on. We weren't born yesterday. We know what is happening. This is a whole process to delay, and I believe they hope to defeat us on this issue. It has been 10 years since we have had the increase. We have had 15 votes. We had a couple of other amendments which were accepted. We are prepared. The issue, on these family-related issues--we are the committee, we will work closely with our brothers and sisters on other committees to get these jobs done. But don't, on Friday afternoon, say: Oh, we just need to have a few more amendments on this. Then what will happen? We are basically holding the increase in the minimum wage hostage now for additional tax expenditures for businesses. No clean bill. The House of Representatives, with 80 Republicans, went ahead and passed a clean bill but not here in the Senate. No, roadblocks were put in our way by Republicans. Make no mistake about it. Let's just call it what it is. Roadblocks, parliamentary tactics are used to block a bare increase in the minimum wage, to basically prohibit that increase. We have the additional billions of dollars in tax expenditures added to it and now we still have opposition by filibuster by amendment. All of us have been around here. It is filibuster by amendment. Thankfully, we have a leader who is going to file cloture so at least we will have the vote on Tuesday next. But there should be no doubt in the minds of people, as we come into this weekend, who bears the burden in terms of the basic reluctance and opposition to the increase in the minimum wage. As I said yesterday--I won't repeat it--but it amazes me to try and understand why this blind opposition, and why the vehemence of this opposition of increasing the minimum wage to $7.25. What is it that bothers our Republican friends? What is it about it? It isn't the question about we want an opportunity to talk about education or health care or Social Security or immigration. No, no. There is opposition to going to $7.25 for those who are on the lowest part of the economic ladder. We have seen the most extraordinary explosion of wealth in this country in the history of this Nation, and we have held those workers for 10 years--they have lost 20 percent of their purchasing power. We are just restoring the purchasing power for those individuals. It has the strong continuing opposition of the Republicans. It is difficult for me to understand the reasons for that. Certainly it can't be economic. We haven't had a debate--we have been ready to have that debate on what it does in terms of communities, what it does in terms of the economy. We have demonstrated that with figures, the best we have had. States that have increased the minimum wage do better economically. Countries that increase the minimum wage reduce poverty, have the strongest economies in Europe. We are glad to debate the various case studies that have been done with Krueger and Card over at Princeton analyzing different kinds of communities. We are glad to debate if you want to debate economics. No, no. It is all filibuster by amendment on these other topics. So, Mr. President, I thank our leader, Senator Reid, for being willing to file the cloture petition. We will vote on it next week, and hopefully we will be able to get a positive vote on that and we will be able to move ahead. We want to leave on this Friday and let those who are out there who have been working hard and who are appreciative of the Congress--4 hours the House took to debate an increase in the minimum wage, 80 Republicans who supported that, and here we are at the end of the week, looking forward to another week on this issue with over 109 different amendments waiting, waiting, waiting, all offered by Republicans, on the widest variety of different subject matters one can imagine. We all know what is going on, and so do those minimum wage workers, their families, workers across this country, middle-income people and others in the faith community, in the trade union movement, who believe in a fair America and believe that those on the lowest rung of the economic ladder are entitled to participate in the promise of America, like everyone else. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following Senator Alexander's statement, Senator Lautenberg be recognized for up to 15 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Friday, January 26, 2007, at 9 a.m., in closed session to receive a briefing on recent Chinese anti-satellite testing.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the time be charged equally to both sides.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I might use. This is the fourth day that the Senate is addressing an issue of enormous importance to those on the lower end of the economic ladder-- an increase in the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25. It is not a complicated issue. Everybody in this body knows what the issues are. Usually, we have great debates about complicated issues in the United States of America. Soon we will be debating varied policies with regard to Iraq, as we should. But this issue is a simple issue. It is an issue of simple justice. It is as old as many of us in this body. Minimum wage was advanced more than 70 years ago. We have increased it now nine times over recent years, and yet Republicans want to continue to delay, delay, delay, delay, delay, delay, delay; oppose, oppose, oppose. There was opposition yesterday in insisting that we get cloture in the Senate on an increase in the minimum wage, requiring that we get 60 votes before we can vote up or down on a simple, easy issue and question of fundamental fairness to workers in this country. We are glad to have debates, but the message ought to go out to the American people exactly what is going on here on day 5 in the Senate on the issue of minimum wage. And we continue to have, as the minority leader said, scores--40, 50, more amendments, 90 amendments--on the issue of the increase in the minimum wage--90 amendments. Make no mistake about it, America, who is holding up the increase in the minimum wage. Eight times the Senate has increased its own salary, increased the salary of the good Senator from South Carolina $32,000 in the last 10 years--$32,000. And if we have had 1 hour of debate on that issue--1 hour of debate on that issue, 1 hour of debate on that issue--I would be surprised. This is the fifth day our Republican friends who, as Members on the Democratic side, have enjoyed a $32,000 increase in their pay have 90 amendments to try and scuttle an increase in the minimum wage for low-income workers--trying to scuttle, to sink the increase. These workers understand it. Workers across this country understand it. Working families understand it. Middle-income people understand it. All Americans understand it. This is one of those basic and fundamental issues people understand because it is an issue of fairness. I don't impugn the motives of my friend from South Carolina, but he has opposed the minimum wage on every single occasion he has addressed it--every single occasion. We have the record here as to how the good Senator has voted every time on the issue of an increase in the minimum wage: going back to the House of Representatives in 2002, 2005, and over here on seven different occasions he has voted against the increase in the minimum wage. So the idea that he wants to provide $2.10 more to every worker in States that have raised--under the age- old law of the minimum wage--their minimum wage because of the failure of the Senate to do it has a sort of hollow ring to it. It has sort of a hollow ring to it since he has opposed an increase in the minimum wage on each and every occasion we have considered it. We have to take a look at exactly what is being done. I assure my friend from South Carolina that the workers in my State understand the battle they have had to increase the minimum wage. And I daresay, in the various States across the country that have increased their minimum wage, they have understood that, too. The legislators have gone out and worked, and workers understand what they have done. They have understood what they have done. They have understood that the minimum wage is a basic standard which is supposed to be the lowest living wage. It is supposed to be the lowest living wage. Historically, it is supposed to be half of what the average wage is in the country. That goes back to the time beginning of the minimum wage and the record shows that all the way up to probably the 1980s, and then it has dropped precipitously, half of what it was. Going back to the 1930s, the minimum wage was designed to be a floor. If States want to add something to it, they can, but it ought to be a floor for all workers in this country. One of the principal reasons it was passed at that time is because the Members of this body, the House of Representatives, and the President of the United States saw what was happening in different parts of the country where States were lowering their wages to try and attract industries and companies in a rush to the bottom, with the exploitation of worker after worker, family after family, in a rush to the bottom. So the national decision was taken, in terms of fairness and as a moral issue, that workers who were going to work hard were going to receive a minimum wage. One of the age-old values in our country, in society, is that work ought to pay. We hear that stated around here with great ease and frequency, and that is what we are trying to do with a minimum wage increase. We are trying to make work pay, pay people who are doing some of the most difficult work in America, and demonstrate a respect for that work, give them pay because they are doing hard, difficult work, but we respect our fellow Americans and respect their efforts. This is not the law of the jungle. The economy of the United States of America isn't survival of the fittest. Some would like to have it that way. Some who oppose the minimum wage would like to have it that way, but it isn't that way, thank God, in the United States of America. It is in the jungle, but not with regard to a democracy and a free economy. Let me state specifically what this proposal does. The good Senator yesterday voted to permit any State to effectively opt out of any kind of minimum wage. So that would have fundamentally destroyed any kind of uniformity across the country. His proposal is, in the wake of the Senate and Congress over 10 years under Republican leadership refusing to increase the minimum wage, the States in their own good judgments have done so, and now he says let's add on $2.10 to do that. It does seem to me appealing in a certain respect, because I believe the minimum wage is not a livable wage in many parts of the country. We have seen these livable wage campaigns that are taking place in Baltimore, Los Angeles--many cities around the country--my own city of Boston, and they have raised it in a particular region, and it has had great success. But that isn't the issue. This particular amendment of the Senator would basically do what was attempted yesterday, but do it in a different way. Yesterday was to effectively end the minimum wage by letting any State opt out. Today the swing of the pendulum has gone the other way. The amendment says we are going to add additional funds on to any State. Every State over these past years has noted the failure of the Senate as a result of Republican leadership because we have had a majority read back the records of the votes in the Senate. We had a majority in the Senate with good Republican support to raise the minimum wage, but we couldn't get to the 60 votes, and our Republican leadership wouldn't let us. So the States moved ahead. Now that the States have moved ahead, the Senator wants to say: Oh, you have moved ahead because you made a judgment about the respect for your own workers, and we are going to add on to it to try to disrupt the minimum wage. I hope this amendment will not be accepted, and I hope we will be able to move along and make further progress on this issue. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I thank the good Senator for his concern about the workers in Massachusetts. In Boston we have a living wage of $11.95. We made that judgment in Boston, and it is working very well. I take note, in this American Chamber of Commerce Researchers Association publication, that South Carolina ranks 18th in terms of the cost of living. There are 17 other States that have a lower cost of living. But South Carolina is 18th in this list. It is not at the lowest; it is 18th. The fact is, it is not greatly out of sync. It is close to the average across the country. But let's get back to the effect of the Senator's amendment. In Arizona, in this last election, there were 756,144 people who voted for an increase in the minimum wage to $6.75. That vote would be overturned, effectively, by the Senator from South Carolina. In Colorado, 725,700 turned out for a $6.85 minimum wage. The citizens of Colorado--their votes would be overturned. In Missouri, 1,583,340 million voted for $6.50. That vote would be overturned. Montana, $6.15, 283,258 turned out. Nevada, 394,058 turned out, $6.15 an hour. Ohio, $6.85, 2,080,648 turned out. Those are 5,823,148 in six different States. That is in regard to the initial referendum. All of that would be overturned by the Senator from South Carolina. So I come back to the basic concept, and that is that we have established some minimum standards. There are a lot of objections to those minimum health standards, so workers are not going to be--since we passed OSHA in 1970, we have cut in half the number of workers who have been killed in the workplace. We have cut that in half. About 60 percent less workers have been killed. There are other kinds of illnesses that have come up with changes in our economy, but a decision in judgment was made that we are not going to have the exploitation of workers. We are going to have safe workplaces. We don't permit the exploitation of children in our factories. We think they ought to be in schools. Some economists think: Oh, let's have children in there. Let's work those children and see what the market does. Let's let those workers go in and work in those dangerous places. If the market, if it is going to be that disruptive in terms of the employer, let's go ahead and do that. Well, we had decided at another time that we were not going to permit the exploitation of children or women in the workplace, and we were also going to insist on health and safety regulations and we were going to establish a basic floor, a basic floor, a minimum. It is not high enough even at $7.25, I don't believe myself, but that is the judgment that has been basically made by the Congress, by our side, the Democrats, and by a handful of Republicans, and we wish to see that raised. We wish to see that raised. I suppose you could take the good Senator's argument and logic and say: Well, we have increased our salaries $32,000, and they have a different cost of living, so maybe South Carolina ought to get less, if we want to follow that logic. We say: No, we are one country with one history and one destiny, and we are going--obviously, Members of Congress and Members of the Senate are going to be treated as they should be, and that is fairly, for the work they do. We say workers ought to be treated fairly for the work they do. Minimum standard. This amendment does injustice to that. I would mention there is obviously a disparity in the cost of living. I have mentioned what the Energy Information Administration says a worker across the country pays, on average, for gasoline, and that is $2.17 a gallon. In South Carolina, it is $2.13 a gallon. It is 3 cents more in my State of Massachusetts. I was going to get the basic indicators. Health care, the average cost for a family is going to be $11,000. Try and do that on $5.15 an hour--$11,000. It is probably a little more, closer to $12,000 in Massachusetts--but $11,000 for a family of four. Try and do that on $5.15. We have the housing charts up here. I would think that even $5.15 or $7.25 an hour for people who work hard in South Carolina, they are going to have a tight belt strap in providing for their children, providing for their food, and providing for their general well-being. But this does a major alteration and change to a very fundamental concept to what the minimum wage is all about, and I hope the Senator's amendment will not be successful and that our colleagues will vote no. Madam President, how much time remains?

Mr. KENNEDY. We have 11 minutes 10 seconds. Well, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, I withhold.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, how much time do I have left?