Minimum Wage Fairness Act - Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Madam President, I wish to comment on the vote we took earlier today on whether to proceed to a bill that would increase the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.

It has been several years since we increased the minimum wage, and I support an increase in the minimum wage. But I do not believe at a time when our economy is so fragile, as is indicated by the very slow increase in GDP that was reported this morning, we can afford to increase the minimum wage by some 39 percent.

I would note that just a year ago President Obama was suggesting we should increase the minimum wage to $9 an hour. I do not see any change in the economic conditions that would have caused him to abruptly change his position and now be advocating $10.10 an hour.

I know there are many low-income families who are really struggling in this country, and I believe our economy could accommodate an increase in the minimum wage. But the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan entity, has told us the consequences of going to $10.10 an hour would be a loss of some 500,000 jobs--at a time when our economy simply cannot afford that kind of loss.

I have talked with numerous employers in Maine. They care deeply about their employees. They, in most cases, are willing and able to pay more. In fact, many of them do pay more. In fact, all of them pay more than the Federal minimum wage because Maine's minimum wage is $7.50 an hour rather than $7.25 an hour. So we are already above the Federal minimum wage.

But what they told me is that if there is too much of an increase too rapidly, they will be forced to shrink their workforces or not bring on those summer part-time employees, those high school students, those college students, those individuals who do not have the training and experience that are necessary to be productive in the job for which they are hired at that time.

There is a huge area of compromise available here between $7.25 and $10.10. I think it speaks to what is wrong with Washington today that we were placed in a situation where it was take it or leave it rather than our trying to come together and offer amendments and debate the level that might be acceptable to Members of this body and our colleagues in the House--a level that would not cause dramatic job losses, which would hurt the very people we are trying to help, and yet would recognize we do need to increase the minimum wage by a reasonable amount to help struggling low-income families.

So I have to express my disappointment and frustration that we cannot seem to have a normal legislative process, where ideas could be offered as amendments, as compromises between $7.25 and $10.10, where Members could bring other ideas to the Senate floor on how we might spur job creation, on how we could improve job training programs, which is a huge issue in this country.

I have talked to so many employers in Maine, particularly in the trades, who have jobs available but cannot find the skilled workers to fill those jobs. I had a terrific and enlightening meeting with union representatives from Bath Iron Works, who told me we need to do a better job at our community colleges in training workers for the great jobs--far above minimum wage--that exist at Bath Iron Works in my State.

So there are so many ideas out there that would help us improve the financial condition of our low-income families--from increasing the minimum wage by an amount that does not cause massive job losses, to improving our job training programs so we can fix this mismatch between the jobs that are available and the skills that our workers have.

I would note that the Department of Commerce Secretary testified there are 4 million jobs that are unfilled nationwide because of that mismatch in available jobs to the skills needed to fill them.

There are other proposals to give tax incentives to small businesses. We have allowed a very important tax incentive that encouraged hiring to expire at the end of last year. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit expired. Why not extend that--not only to those groups who qualify now, but also to people who have been unemployed for a long time, to encourage employers to take a chance on them, to bring them back into the workforce, where they want to be.

We could also include other provisions. For example, I have a bipartisan bill with Senator Donnelly and Senator Manchin and Members on my side of the aisle that would fix the definition of full-time work under ObamaCare so it would be 40 hours a week and not 30 hours a week. We would go back to the standard definition of 40 hours a week.

There are tax incentives having to do with bonus depreciation and small business expensing that would encourage small businesses to make the investments so they can hire more employees.

We ought to have a full debate on all of these options, not just stop with one vote on whether to proceed to one bill to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, with no amendments allowed, with no alternative proposals being permitted.

I so believe if we could get back to the normal way of doing business, we would so much better serve the people of this country, including low-income workers who are struggling to get by. I believe we could come up with a compromise that would enjoy bipartisan support. I am not saying it would be easy, but we ought to at least try. I have talked with colleagues on both sides of the aisle who are willing to try, and we need to be given that opportunity.

Each and every Member in this body cares about individuals who are working two jobs, who may have two minimum-wage jobs because they are trying to support their families. I think we could come together. But we cannot come together unless we are allowed to offer alternatives, to fully debate the issues, and to bring forth ideas to improve our job training programs and to encourage the creation of more jobs, as well as better-paying jobs, in what, unfortunately, remains a very anemic economy.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source