Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. I have heard the objection. We have had complaints about my offering the minimum wage amendment on this legislation. Then what do we do? We say: OK, let's let this go through. But just give us an opportunity to consider an increase in the minimum wage on the floor of the Senate with a very short time limitation. And we can't get agreement on that. There you go. That is what this is all about. I must say the idea that this isn't appropriate, if we could have gotten an option to go ahead and have the individual bill for an increase in the minimum wage, have an opportunity to vote on both the Senator's amendment and our amendment, let's have that and let's go back to the good old days where a majority would carry. That is fine with me. That would be fine with me. I will just take a half an hour on our side. Surely, the Senate can find time to give a half an hour to the issue of increasing the minimum wage for workers. One half hour, let's see where the Senate goes, whoever gets more than 50 votes. That used to be the way around here. But not now. We hear complaining about bringing up the minimum wage on this bill, and they still are going to have to get 60 votes on it because there will be a point of order raised against this on the budget. We have heard a great deal before, at the time when my good friend was talking about his health care bill about wanting to have a debate on his health care bill. Remember that? It wasn't all that long ago. Let's have a good up-or-down debate. Let's have a vote. What is it, denying the opportunity for people to have this debate? Well, we would be more than glad to have this legislation. You can have on your side a half an hour. We will take a half an hour. Let the chips fall where they may. If the leader wants to come out and make that, we have offered similar to that. There has been objection to it, but it is a reflection of our good faith. From an early reading of the amendment of the Senator from Wyoming, they would raise the minimum wage by $1.10. Would the Senator tell me what the cost of the Enzi amendment is? What is the cost? Do we have a budget point of order? Could I address the Senator from Wyoming? If he could tell me what the budget cost of his amendment would be? While he is doing so, I will mention a couple of other points. His amendment would raise the minimum wage by $1.10 instead of by $2.10, which our bill does. It cuts overtime, and it also reduces benefits so only 1.8 million workers would be covered. That is 4.8 million fewer than my amendment. Theirs is $1.10 an hour instead of $2.10, and there are 4.8 million fewer than my amendment. Then it also cuts overtime pay. It ends Federal labor standards coverage for over 10 million workers. By raising the gross income of the companies that will be covered, they will eliminate 10 million workers. They will be eliminated from any kind of minimum wage or fair labor standards protections. Then it basically overturns State actions that are dealing with what they call the wage tip credit which States vary about how they do it. But the Enzi amendment puts a cap on that. The States now, for example, can have a higher minimum wage than we have. We haven't preempted the States because it has always been a flooring. Some States believe that those who depend on tips ought to be given a somewhat additional break. We are talking about people who make $5.15 an hour, maybe make $6 or $7 in tips, and you are trying to nickel-and-dime them on that with the Enzi amendment, preempt the States. I hope my colleagues have a chance to read through this overnight because we are preempting the States that have reached a different conclusion with regard to tip credit. The Enzi amendment says that is going to be out. That is quite a mouthful. People understand those issues pretty well. They are very important. I don't know whether we have an answer. I will be glad to hear it later on. Could the Senator give me what the budget cost for his amendment would be?

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

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am going to describe what I understand is in the amendment which is being offered by Senator Enzi. I think it is important that we have a chance over the evening--because it looks less likely that we are going to be completing this debate tonight. We have others who are on their way over here. But I am going to review this and try to get through it, and then if I have misstated it, I hope I will be corrected. In the last 9 years, while costs have been rising, the minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour; that is, $10,712 a year, $6,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. Since 1997, the minimum wage has lost 20 percent of its value. The Enzi proposal is a $1.10 increase--far short of making up for this lost value. It won't even make up for the lost value of the purchasing power of the existing minimum wage. It leaves behind 4.8 million workers who would be covered by the Democratic proposal because it only raises the wages of 1.8 million workers. The raise to $5.15 was historically low, lower than any but for one increase in the 1960s. In fact, before the 1997 increase, the minimum wage had fallen to its lowest level since 1960. So we can't allow such a low increase for hard-working minimum wage workers. Eighty percent of the 14.9 million Americans who would be affected by the minimum wage are adults, and more than a third are the sole breadwinners in their families. Minimum wage workers have waited 9 years. They deserve one that is fair. On the issue about the 10 million Americans who will lose the minimum wage in overtime protection, first, the Bush administration and Republican leadership in Congress stripped away overtime protection from 6 million Americans. That has already taken place. That has already taken place. They have done that through rules and regulations. Now they want to deny over 10 million more workers, minimum wage workers, overtime pay by eliminating the fair labor standards coverage entirely. Do you see what I mean? If you eliminate the coverage of the Fair Labor Standards Act, you eliminate the protections for overtime pay. Currently, all employees who work for employers who are engaged in interstate commerce, have gross annual sales of at least $500,000, are guaranteed the minimum wage and overtime pay. But even in businesses that have less than $500,000 in annual sales, employees still have individual minimum wage and overtime coverage if they are engaged in interstate commerce. The Enzi amendment would raise the $500,000 annual sales to $1 million and eliminate the fair labor standards coverage for workers who are engaged in interstate commerce. No more overtime for those individuals--10 million. Raising the annual business threshold to $1 million and eliminating the individual coverage would force greater numbers of hard-working Americans, retail workers, security guards, garment workers, waitresses, and their families into poverty. Raising the annual threshold and eliminating individual coverage would allow businesses to pay their workers less than the Federal minimum wage and require them to work longer hours without overtime pay. So, on the one hand, you get the $1.10 increase for 1.8 million, which will not even cover the lost value of the $5.15 since the last 9 years. Then you eliminate the overtime protections for these workers as well. Because the Fair Labor Standards Act guarantees overtime and equal pay for women and men, this exemption jeopardizes these rights for over 10 million workers. The gross annual sales threshold was created as a way to determine that employers were engaged in interstate commerce, not as a way to exempt workers from minimum wage and overtime protection. Doubling the annual sales threshold and eliminating individual coverage would take away those protections for over 10 million workers, contradicting the long-term intent of the Congress to expand the Fair Labor Standards Act. For over 60 years Congress has repeatedly amended the Fair Labor Standards Act to provide more protection, more minimum wage and more overtime protection--not less. This will be the first time we will see the significant reduction rather than an expansion. Instead of trying to exclude over 10 million workers from the guarantee of a minimum wage, we should be trying to raise it. It has been more than 9 years. Americans have waited long enough. This chart indicates raising the business exemption reverses a tradition of extending worker rights. Congress amended the business exemption in 1961, 1967, 1969 and 1989, each time to afford more employees minimum wage and overtime protections. The current $500,000 exemption was established deliberately to cover more employees. By raising the exemption, the Republican proposal would reduce the protection for the first time. That is very important. I want to cover the last two points. I see the Senator from Connecticut here. Under the Republican proposal, workers opt into the flextime system, but once they do, they do not control their own schedules. They work a 50-hour workweek when their employer tells them to, not when they choose to. Under the current system, workers would get overtime for those extra 10 hours a week. Under the Republican proposal, they would not. The Republicans claim the proposal would give the parent time to see a child's soccer game or attend a child's school play. They, in reality, don't get that freedom. They just get paid less for working a longer workweek. Public sector workers also have greater protection from being coerced to agree to flextime if they don't want it. Pubic employees generally have the protection of a union contract as well as the constitutional due process protections afforded them in the Civil Service, although this administration is trying to undermine those due process rights as well. Public employees can challenge abuses of flextime within the context of those protections, whereas most public employees cannot. As then-Governor Ashcroft explained in 1985, when the Senate was considering whether to permit flextime in the public sector: State and local governments are qualitatively different in structure and function from private business. Public employees serve under exceptional circumstance, the most significant characteristic of which is the protection public servants enjoy because they work in government. I am also going to add to the statement an analysis on the tip credit that would show how this effectively preempts the State from being able to make a judgment on this. This is a one-size-fits-all. It is ``the Federal Government knows best.'' If we pass it here, we preempt what Massachusetts can do, what Connecticut can do, what Georgia can do. It doesn't seem to me to be the wise course of action. We permit States to make their own judgment to increase the minimum wage because that is what it is, a minimum. It is a bottom. But this proposal is going to interfere with the States' wage policy in other ways. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. KENNEDY. Well, I imagine we will get them later in the afternoon or get them on tomorrow. Could the Senator indicate when we might anticipate those? The reason this is important is because we are talking about 50 pages of tax issues in the Enzi amendment. Therefore, there is a cost to it. It does seem to me that prior to the time that we have a vote, we ought to know what those particular costs are. We have on the one hand the issues that are directly related to the minimum wage, and then we have the costs in terms of an addition to the deficit. I don't know whether the Senator could tell us that we are going to get it later this evening. If you can give us the assurance, if you think we will have it this evening, that is fine; otherwise, whatever help the Senator could provide, I would be grateful.

Mr. KENNEDY. I am not sure that I completely understood the Senator's response in terms of the cost. What is the cost of the first, second, third, fourth, or fifth year? We will try and get that, if we could. I point out to my colleagues, the amendment I offer is 2\1/2\ pages. The Enzi amendment is 71\1/2\ pages, 50 of which are tax provisions. It does seem to me if we were debating, look, ours is $2.10, yours is $1.10, let's go at it. Let the Senate make a judgment. But it isn't that. We have 50 pages in here of tax provisions that are going to evidently be called incentives on the one hand but to others they are going to increase the deficit on the other hand. I am not exactly sure what those are. Then we are not only being questioned about that, but we also know that we have in that proposal a cut of overtime pay and the ending of Federal Labor Standards Act coverage for 10 million workers and basically a preemption of States that want to treat the tip credit in the way that they want, which is quite a proposal. I would hope that we would have a chance, which I expect we will, to at least examine it over the evening. This chart says the $1.10 increase leaves 4.8 million workers behind, the difference between the Enzi proposal and the way ours is drafted. I wanted to address a couple of the issues the Senator has pointed out with regard to small business. This chart shows results of a Gallup Poll of May 2006: 86 percent of small business owners say the minimum wage does not affect their business. The question was: How does the minimum wage affect your business? Eighty-six percent said no effect; 8 percent, negative effect; positive effect, 5 percent; no opinion, the rest. So it is kind of interesting, we have sort of gone beyond this point in terms of where the small business community is. They have a pretty good understanding of what happens. What we have found out with the increase, for example, on the living wage, you take the most dramatic example is the neighboring city of Baltimore. When they increased it to a living wage, what happened? First of all, they had less turnover. It was less costly on the city in terms of training new workers. Secondly, they increased their productivity. They got less individuals who stayed home on sick leave because people began to take a greater pride in their work. Why? Because they were being treated with greater respect. And finally, the overall cost of the program, even though they increased it to about $11.50--I am not sure, I think it is even above that; they were one of the first with a living wage-- they found out that the workers were working harder, took greater pride in their work, and there was greater productivity, a greater increase in morale, and their overall costs have actually gone down. States with higher minimum wages create more small businesses. I was listening to the Senator talk about the burden on small businesses. I just showed a recent Gallup Poll of small businesses which was in May of this year. Here are the 10 States plus DC with minimum wages higher than $5.15, and overall growth of small business is 5.4 percent. Forty States have a minimum wage of $5.15, and there is 4.2 percent growth. The States with the higher increase in the minimum wage saw an increase in the total numbers. Study after study finds raising the minimum wage does not cause job loss. This is by David Card and Alan Krueger, from Princeton's reanalysis of the effect of the New Jersey minimum wage increase on the fast food industry and representative payroll data, 1998. The increase in the minimum wage probably had no effect on total employment and possibly had a small positive effect. Four different tests of the two increases on employment impact fail to find any systematic, significant job loss associated with the 1996-1997 increases, Economic Policy Institute. Detailed studies of California's last two decades, the State-increased minimum wage legislation, consistently no employment for workers. This chart shows the increases in 1996. It is too bad we have to go back so far, but we haven't had an increase in the minimum wage. Here is the increase in the minimum wage to $4.75. I think it was $3.45 prior to that time. We went to $4.75. This is total job growth after we had the increase in the minimum wage. Then we increased to it $5.15. This is a chart that shows the total job growth in the United States during that period. This idea about the impact on jobs is interesting, but it has been refuted time and time again. This chart shows that the last minimum wage increase did not increase unemployment. These are the figures on unemployment. The last increase to $5.15 actually shows the unemployment going down over the period of the years, from 1997 until 2000. It doesn't have the most recent figures. But it is a pretty good indication of what was happening during that time. So we find that the States which have a higher increase in the minimum wage are expanding in small business. Eighty-six percent of small business, according to the Gallup poll, said it doesn't have any effect, in terms of employment. The national review about what has happened the last two times we raised the minimum wage was that it had virtually no impact in terms of the employment issue. Finally, inflation. That issue is always another canard that is pointed out. They say if you raise the minimum wage, we are going to cause inflation. Look at what we are doing, Mr. President. Increasing the minimum wage to $7.25 is vital to these workers, but it is a drop in the bucket to the national payroll. All Americans combined earned $5.4 trillion a year. A minimum wage increase to $7.25 would be less than one-fifth of 1 percent of the national payroll. There it is. No inflation, no adverse impact on unemployment. Small business feels that it doesn't impact or affect them. The studies show that small businesses have grown in States where they have had an increase in the minimum wage. These are the economic arguments, but most of all, as we have said day in and day out, this is a fairness issue. These are men and women who work hard and play by the rules and take a sense of pride in their work. They work as teachers aides, in nursing homes, cleaning up the great buildings of American commerce, and they work hard and try to do a decent job. More often than not they have two and sometimes three other jobs. Primarily, they are women. As I have pointed out, it is a women's issue. Primarily, those women have children. It is a children and a women's issue. It is a family issue. It is a family value issue and a civil rights issue because so many of the workers are men and women of color. And fairness, fairness. You don't have an economic argument against increasing it to $7.25, and you don't have an argument that is relevant to decency and fairness in opposing this kind of increase. Americans understand fairness, they understand decency, and they understand the importance of hard-working Americans who are playing by the rules. A job in America should get you out of poverty, not keep you in it. And the alternative to our increase in the minimum wage will keep you in poverty. We can do better as a country, and we will. I see my friend from New Jersey who desires to address the Senate on the minimum wage. I hope he will have an opportunity to do that for as long as he likes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, our friend and colleague, the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd, is looking forward to addressing the Senate in just a minute or two. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I wish to review for the Senate what has been happening to many families in this country over recent years regarding the important growth of poverty and its relationship to the minimum wage. It has a very direct relationship. The figures are rather startling. It is appropriate, when we are talking about an increase in the minimum wage, that we have some fuller understanding about the growth of poverty in our Nation over recent years. Mr. President, 5.4 million more Americans are in poverty. We had 31.6 million in 2000, and now there are 37 million. There is a 5.4-million greater number of Americans living in poverty in the United States. Of those 5.4 million, 2.5 million are children. It is interesting, when we talk about an increase in the minimum wage, if we look at the countries of Western Europe--take Great Britain, for example, which has the second most powerful economy in Western Europe. In October, they will increase the minimum wage, and it will go to $9.80 an hour. Listen to Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the pride that he takes as a public servant, Chancellor of the Exchequer--effectively our Secretary of Treasury and the head of OMB combined--in having lifted 2 million children out of poverty over the last 6 years. We have put 2.5 million children into poverty in the last 5 years. There are 5 million more Americans who are on the verge of hunger. These figures are from Food Security in the United States, USDA. These are not figures from those of us who are supporting an increase in the minimum wage. These are the figures. We have 5 million more Americans who are feeling the pangs of hunger, and the great percentage of those are children, again. What is consistent in the last 5 years? No increase in the minimum wage, the growth of the number of people in poverty, the growth of the problems of hunger. We have Americans struggling to survive in this current economy, the Bush economy. Too many Americans are living in poverty: 1 in every 10 families; nearly 1 out of every 5 children in this country; 1 out of every 5 Hispanic Americans, and 1 out of every 4 African Americans. This is interesting. It shows the extraordinary growth of poverty, particularly child poverty, in the failure to increase the minimum wage. So one says: What does that really have to do with the minimum wage no longer lifting a family out of poverty? In 1965, 1970, 1975, for a period of some 20 years, we had a minimum wage that was above or at the poverty level. Republicans and Democrats did this for 20 years, and now we are seeing an absolute collapse. There was a little blip with the increase in the minimum wage, and now we are down to an alltime low, some $5,888 or less. We know that in the last 9 years, the increase to $5.15 is buying about 15 to 20 percent less. It is not only $5.15 an hour, the purchasing of that $5.15 per hour is less. The United States has the highest child poverty rate of the industrialized world. Here it is. Of all the industrial nations of the world, we have the highest poverty rate. That obviously has something to do with what their parents are being paid. Not completely; there are other programs in these countries that are directed toward children. The Presiding Officer, a former Secretary of Education, is familiar with what a number of these countries do in terms of trying to assist and providing special allowances for children in a number of ways. Nonetheless, what comes out of it is the fact that we have the highest child poverty rate of any industrial nation in the world. The fact that we have not had an increase in the minimum wage is directly related to that. Again, if you look over at this chart here, the States with the highest child poverty have the lowest minimum wages, with the exception of Pennsylvania, and that is a State with 20 percent greater child poverty than the national average but has a higher minimum wage. But the rest are basically States with lower minimum wages, a direct tie-in with the minimum wage and poverty and child poverty. We have a chance to do something about child poverty and about poverty in this country, and we can do it in a way that is not going to endanger inflation or provide increasing unemployment or threaten the small business community. As we have gone through this, we have seen those arguments which have been raised and which were raised again this afternoon by my good friends from Wyoming and Georgia. They are arguments I have listened to for the last number of years I have been in the Senate. The fact is that when we have had an increase in the minimum wage, no one has ever said: Let's go back, let's go back, although we are going to be faced with an alternative tomorrow to my increase in the minimum wage that will take us back, will eliminate the coverage, eliminate overtime for a number of workers, and that is unfortunate. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, earlier today we went through a good deal of the history of the minimum wage, and we also went into the growth of poverty, particularly for children and for those who receive the minimum wage. I wish to read a couple of real-life stories because I think it is always useful to understand that besides the graphs we have been able to show and the statistics we have been able to show on these charts, we also show in real terms what is happening to a lot of our fellow citizens, our fellow Americans. This is a story from the Sacramento Bee, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record in its entirety. This is June 18, 2006, last Sunday: Monique Garcia earned minimum wage for most of a decade before becoming homeless. She washed dishes, swept floors, collected parking tickets, worked cash registers, staffed drive-through windows, and flipped burgers. Despite that, two months ago, the 26-year-old single mom found herself with too little money for rent and no place to go. She moved with her 7-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son into St. John's, a family shelter tucked into an industrial corner of Sacramento. They share a room with another minimum- wage worker and her two young children. Garcia and her roommate trade off, one watching the kids while the other works. It's hard, you've got a family to support and minimum wage isn't it, Garcia said last week.

Mr. KENNEDY. The stories continue along. This is happening out in Sacramento. Here is a story about, for all intents and purposes, Christie: Christie did a job that this labor-hungry economy could not do without. Every morning she drove her battered '86 Volkswagen from her apartment in public housing to the YWCA's child care center in Akron, OH, where she spent the day watching over little children so their parents could go to work. Without her and thousands like her across the country, there would have been fewer people able to fill the jobs that fueled America's prosperity. Without her patience and warmth, children could have been harmed as well, for she was more than a babysitter. She gave the youngsters an emotionally safe place, taught and mothered them, and sometimes even rescued them from abuse at home. For those valuable services, she received a check for about $330 every two weeks. She could not afford to put her own two children in the day care center where she worked. She is looking out for children, and she is unable to provide the childcare for herself. Carolyn Payne did everything right but still can't find a job with decent wages. She had earned a college diploma, albeit a two-year associate's degree. And she had gone from a homeless shelter into her own house, although it was mostly owned by a bank. The third objective, ``a good-paying job,'' as she put it, still eluded her. Back in the mid-1970s, she earned $6 an hour in a Vermont factory that made plastic cigarette lighters and cases for Gillette razors. In 2000, she earned $6.80 an hour stocking shelves and working cash registers at a vast Wal-Mart superstore in New Hampshire. ``And that's sad,'' she said. She just can't make it and is in a homeless shelter. These people, our brothers and sisters of America who want to work, want to provide for their families, will do hard and difficult work. Carolyn Payne should have a greater sense of hope in the richest and the most powerful country in the world. We will give them that if we increase the minimum wage. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. KENNEDY. As all of us know, the Senator has been the chairman of the Children's Caucus here in the Senate. He is the author of the Family and Medical Leave legislation. He worked 5 years to get that legislation passed. It has been a great success. There were extensive hearings in our committee over the course of the years on children and children's needs, children's education. Does he agree with me that we have seen this remarkable growth of child poverty in the last 5 years? The Senator has just mentioned this. I just want to underline it. In the strongest economy of the world, we are seeing a significant growth in child poverty and child hunger in this Nation, and we have seen, as the Senator pointed out, the virtual lack of increase in the minimum wage and the reduction of purchasing power. Does the Senator join with me in recognizing what we have seen? The U.K., which is the second strongest economy in Europe, will be going to $9.80 an hour in December. Gordon Brown takes pride in the fact that they have raised 1.8 million children out of poverty in the U.K. over the period of the last 5 years. In Ireland it is $9.60, and they have raised hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. Does the Senator agree with me that the fact of the failure of increasing the minimum wage has had an extremely negative impact on the well-being of children in our country, resulting in the fact that there are hundreds of thousands, even millions more children who are living in poverty because we have failed to do that?

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator has given just an excellent statement about what happens to children when they live in poverty. I was wondering if the Senator would comment about the growth of hunger over the last 5 years. There are 5 million more of these people now, according to the USDA, and more than 20 percent of these are children. Five million more Americans are hungry or on the verge of hunger. I wonder, I ask someone who chaired the Children's Caucus, I ask about the fact that children are increasingly pressured in terms of the issue of hunger, what does this do to a child in terms of a child's development? Let me add one addendum. I believe the Senator may remember what happened, I think it was in Philadelphia, where they expanded the school lunch program to include a school breakfast program. They found out that the grades of the children all went up noticeably--I think it was somewhat close to 10 percent. In any event, it was clearly noticed, as they found out, when children have decent nutrition, their performance--in terms of educationally, culturally, socially, and from a discipline point of view--is very importantly impacted. I wonder if the Senator would tell us from his own experience what he knows about this.

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield for one more question?

Mr. KENNEDY. Now we find out there is increasing hunger, and now we know it affects more than one million children. Can the Senator tell us what he knows about Americans and their degree of support to relieve the hunger of children? It is truly overwhelming, is it not?

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I support the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act of fiscal year 2007, and I commend the impressive way in which the distinguished Senator from Virginia has led the Senate Armed Services Committee over these last 6 years. He has provided a consistently steady hand on the tiller in these troubled times, and the Senate's action in naming the bill is eminently well deserved. In a time of conflict, our first and foremost responsibility is to provide for our troops in the field, and this bill provides for our soldiers, our sailors, marines, and airmen defending our great country in all parts of the world. We have improved on the administration's request for our service members. Our forces overseas are being stressed, and they bear the heavy burden of combat. Yet the administration would cut their end strength and reduce the value of the retirement health benefits they may well need to cope with the effect of the war. The committee wisely chose not to follow this path. Instead, we maintained the end strength and benefits in addition to a 2.2-percent pay raise and larger targeted increases for midgrade, enlisted, and warrant officers. The bill also improves on the administration's request for future readiness. It authorizes substantial investments in key ships, aircraft, and Army transformation programs. It also ensures long-term value for the taxpayer by preserving competition in our vital aircraft engine and shipbuilding industries. In addition, it calls for continued acquisition reforms to reduce fraud and waste in defense spending. Even more important, the bill invests in the protection of our personnel. It authorizes over a billion dollars in force protection equipment, including up-armored HMMWVs and body armor. And it also provides $2.1 billion for the joint improvised explosive device defeat fund to support a Manhattan project effort to deal with IEDs, the No. 1 threat to our forces in the field and to innocent Iraqis. So this is a very worthy piece of legislation. It bears the name of one of our most honorable Members, the chairman of our committee, and I welcome the opportunity to support that. I had intended this afternoon to offer an increase in the minimum wage as an amendment to the Defense authorization bill. I think it is a fair question to ask, does this really make sense on a Defense authorization bill? I respond to that that so many of those brave men and women are fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq or fighting for the values this Nation represents, and one of the values this Nation represents is fairness and decency to hard-working American workers. Fairness and decency for hard-working American workers means they are going to be paid a fair, just wage. That is why I think it is consistent with this legislation. I know we are going to have important debates and discussions on other parts of the Defense authorization bill, but we welcome the opportunity to raise this issue. It is not a new issue, it is a familiar issue. It doesn't take a great deal of time, although a number of our colleagues wish to be heard on it because it is an issue we have debated and discussed going back to the 1930s. The Members of this body are extremely familiar with it as a public policy issue in question and can express an informed judgment about it in virtually short order. For generations, Americans have believed that if they worked hard and played by the rules, they could achieve the American dream. They believed they could be better off than their parents or could join the middle class. They could earn more each year, provide safety and security for their families, and save for their retirement. But today, more and more Americans are losing faith in that dream as prices for everyday necessities, such as gasoline and housing and health care, skyrocket. Too many hard-working people are living on the edge--just one serious illness, one pink slip away from bankruptcy. For minimum wage workers, the American dream is even further from reality. Minimum wage workers are men and women of dignity. They care for their children and for young children in daycare centers. They care for senior citizens in nursing homes. They check out groceries in the supermarket. They clean our office buildings. But the minimum wage they receive no longer covers their bills. A minimum wage worker who works 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, earns just $10,700. That is almost $6,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. At these wages, no matter how hard they work, minimum wage workers are forced to make impossible choices between paying the rent and buying groceries, paying the heating bills or buying clothes. They cannot afford health care. They cannot earn enough to pay for adequate housing for their families anywhere in the country. Minimum wage workers' daily fear is poverty, hunger, and homelessness. Our Republican colleagues continue to turn a blind eye to the struggles of working families in this country, particularly the hard-working people who work for the very lowest wages. It has been almost 10 years since Congress raised the minimum wage. Time and again, many have called on the Senate to increase the minimum wage. Yet, time and again, Republican colleagues refuse to give working people the raise they deserve, even though we grant annual pay increases to Senators. What could be more hypocritical? Fortunately, the American people understand what the Republican leadership does not, and that is nobody who works hard for a living should have to live in poverty. That is why the American people overwhelming support an increase in the minimum wage. Year after year, as the GOP Congress keeps refusing to help minimum wage workers, the American people are rising up. They are marching in the streets and praying in churches and synagogues. They are also taking their battles to the ballot box and telling us overwhelmingly that a minimum wage increase is long overdue. This amendment that I am offering with a number of my colleagues will raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour in 3 steps over the next 2 years--70 cents now, 60 cents a year from now, and 60 more cents 2 years from now. This increase will directly raise the pay of more than 6.5 million workers, indirectly benefitting more than 8 million more. Contrary to public perception, these workers are not teenagers looking for their first job for pocket change. Eighty percent of those who benefit are adult workers, more than a third the sole breadwinners of their families. Raising the minimum wage is something I believe is enormously important, and the time to do it is now. I want to review for the Senate for a few minutes a brief history of where we are in terms of the minimum wage. It started in 1938. We see the Presidents listed here. They represent Republican Presidents, as well as Democratic Presidents, who have supported an increase in the minimum wage, going back to 1938. Franklin Roosevelt, three different steps; Harry Truman; Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican; John Kennedy saw an increase; Lyndon Johnson; Richard Nixon; George Bush; and William Clinton. The history of the minimum wage up to the last few years has basically been a bipartisan effort. Yet we have not been able to get a bipartisan effort to increase the minimum wage over the period of the last 9 years. What has happened to those who are on the lowest rung of the economic ladder? As I mentioned, these are men and women of dignity. At the start of this debate, we have to understand who the minimum wage workers are. They are men and women of dignity. These are tough, difficult jobs, but they try to do them well, and they take great pride in their jobs. They work as assistants to teachers, in nursing homes looking after the elderly, cleaning out the great buildings of American commerce, and they are maids in various buildings all across this Nation. They are men and women of dignity. I thought we had sort of an agreement in this body, with Republicans and Democrats alike, that if you have a job, you ought to have a job that gets you out of poverty, not one that keeps you in poverty. Currently, the minimum wage keeps you in poverty; it doesn't get you out of it. I thought we could all agree that we want to get people who work hard and play by the rules out of poverty and have their work be rewarding. I thought that would be something at least Republicans and Democrats could agree on. But we have not been able to get that agreement, Mr. President. What we have seen over the period since 2000 to 2004 is the number of Americans now living in poverty--those lowest income people have increased by 5.4 million of our fellow American citizens. Well over a million of those are children who are living in poverty in the United States. The principal reason for that is because we have not seen an increase in the minimum wage, which is something we can do that can make a major difference in the reduction of poverty for these people who are working hard. Now, this chart shows what the poverty line is. Look where the minimum wage is in the 1960s, right at the poverty line. In the late sixties, it was even above the poverty line. It would have been close to $19,000 a year in terms of real purchasing power. Then in the 1970s and through the 1970s up until 1980, we kept the minimum wage at the Federal poverty level. Then we have seen the decline in the purchasing power of the minimum wage now to be less than $5,888. It was up to $19,000 at one time, but is now down to $5,888. You see, Mr. President, if you look at this chart, the 1990 figure--just above it--that was when we raised the minimum wage. And again, in 1997, we saw an increase in the minimum wage. That is when we see those red indicators go up. That shows how far we have seen a decline in the minimum wage. The real minimum wage declined 20 percent in the 9 years of Republican opposition. It is not just the fact that the figures have been frozen, it is the fact that its purchasing power has declined significantly. Look at this, Mr. President. This shows the dramatic reduction down 20 percent in the purchasing power of what we have passed previously. We are not only not increasing the value of the minimum wage in terms of purchasing power, which has declined; now we see in our proposal, effectively over a 2-year period, we raise it to $7.25. We know that we will hear from some that we cannot raise that to $7.25 because of the dramatic impact, adverse impact, it would have on the American economy. It is interesting that this fall in the No. 2 economy in Europe, which is Great Britain, it will be $9.80 an hour. In another leading economy in Western Europe, which happens to be Ireland, it is $9.60 an hour. They have robust economic growth in their economy. Listen to their chancellor, Gordon Brown, talk about the difference the increase in the minimum wage has made. The number of people they brought out of poverty is 2\1/2\ million people, and a million and a half people they brought out of poverty in Great Britain. We have the possibility of making a modest difference with this. This is a modest increase to $7.25. I put this chart up because it is a clear indication about what is happening out in the workforce with American workers. They are working longer and harder. More than 39 million Americans, which is 28 percent of the workforce, work more than 40 hours a week. Nearly one in five workers works more than 48 hours a week. More than 7.6 million Americans are working two or more jobs, and 334,000 of them hold two full-time jobs. So American workers' hours have increased more than in any other industrialized nation. American workers are working longer and harder and getting less pay, Mr. President. We have seen an explosion in terms of productivity, but that is not being passed down to the workers at the lower rung, although it was done at other times by Republicans and Democrats. So what do we say? Are we saying the minimum wage workers are slackers, or that these workers are not working the full time? Are we saying they are not showing up for work? Absolutely not. We see from these statistics that American workers--and particularly the workers at the lower income--are working longer and harder than any workforce in any other industrialized nation in the world. These are the figures from the OECD in 2004. You see that Americans have increased more than any other industrialized country. Many countries have actually gone down. Canada has gone up, from 16.8 percent since 1970 to 2002, and America is up 20 percent. This is what we have. So what are we talking about? We are talking about an issue that primarily affects women because nearly 60 percent of workers affected by a minimum wage increase are women. So this is primarily a women's issue. Better than half of all of those women have children. So this is also a children's issue. This is a children's issue and a women's issue. We hear a great deal about family values in this Chamber. This is a family value--how that child is going to grow up, whether that worker will be treated with respect and dignity, whether that mother or father is going to be able to spend time with that child. That is all reflected in whether we are going to get the increase in the minimum wage. This is also a civil rights issue because so many of those who earn the minimum wage are men and women of color. So it is a women's issue, a children's issue, and civil rights issue. Mr. President, this $4,400 means that would be the cumulative value of that over the period of a year--2 years of childcare--at a time that this body is cutting back on childcare, and the waiting lists in our States are becoming extensive. We know now this would help a family with childcare, with a full tuition for a community college degree, a year and a half of heat and electricity, more than a year of groceries, and more than 8 months of rent. This is not insignificant. It may be to Members of this body, but it is not insignificant to those people who are out there working hard. What I believe is the most difficult point for Americans to understand is that from the time we raised the minimum wage last in 1997 to 2006, Members of Congress have increased their salary by $31,600, but we have refused to increase the minimum wage by 5 cents. Maybe someone can explain that. We have increased our salaries by $31,600, and we haven't increased the minimum wage 5 cents. That is not right, that is not fair, that is wrong, and we have an opportunity to change it. At other times when we have talked about the minimum wage and the impact it has had on the total wages that have been paid in this country, many have said: If you increase the minimum wage, it is going to add to the problems of inflation. We see that the increase in the total amount of minimum wage we include in this is less than one- quarter of 1 percent of total wages that are paid. So it is incidental to that. If we look back over the increases of the minimum wage in the 1990s, it had virtually no impact in terms of employment. Employment actually increased, and unemployment was reduced during that period of time. If we look at the various polls that have been taken even with small business, they say they don't believe they are adversely impacted by an increase in the minimum wage. I submit that we are prepared to move ahead and increase the minimum wage as I open these remarks. I want to retain a few minutes for my friend from New Mexico. We sent our fighting men and women to Afghanistan and Iraq to fight for the values of fairness, decency, and justice, and we are talking about economic justice in this instance. If we are talking about trying to maintain our commitment to the kind of values for which they are fighting--economic justice, economic fairness is certainly one of them--then this issue about increasing the minimum wage is about as basic and fundamental in terms of economic justice as any issue we will have before the Senate. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield such time as the Senator from New Mexico uses.

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, there have been a number of cities, including Boston, across this country that have adopted a living wage. Of course, as the Senator knows, there have been a number of States even in the most recent times--North Carolina, Arkansas, the most recent--that have increased the minimum wage. I am wondering whether the Senator from New Mexico found out in Santa Fe, with an increase in the living wage, what we found out in Baltimore, for example, and that was, first of all, there is much lower turnover by workers in the community, and therefore there is much less training that is necessary for the municipality when they get new workers. There is a much higher degree of attendance, fewer people who are dropping out of the labor market, productivity has increased, and in all we have seen in so many living-wage communities that the concerns which have been expressed by the opposition have melted away because what has happened is the workforce that has remained has become more loyal, more productive, higher morale, and less willing to move or change jobs, better and continued training for their job, and the output for those workers has been a significant improvement. I wonder if the Senator has some general impressions with regard to his own observations and results.

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield on that point?

Mr. KENNEDY. What we have seen is if the employers are not paying the minimum wage, then the workers are eligible for a variety of different Federal programs that are paid for by the general taxpayers; while if they pay the minimum wage or a living wage--and the living wage is more in correspondence to the poverty wage--then these workers are no longer eligible for the range of social programs that are available and there is less of a burden on working Americans. In other words, we find that many of the companies that are paying low wages are actually being subsidized by the taxpayers with either food assistance or additional housing or additional benefits for which they otherwise would not be eligible. This has been estimated to be in the billions of dollars. The Senator makes a very good point that this is just an example about how many of these employers are being subsidized by the taxpayers by keeping low wages so their workers are eligible for other governmental programs, while if they are paid a decent wage, they wouldn't be eligible, and that would relieve the burden on the American taxpayers.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, could the Senator from New Mexico just be given a final few minutes to wind up, and then I have no objection to proceeding with the nomination.

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield to the Senator from New Mexico.