Date: 2013-03-15
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. last week. I met a young man named Gregory Reynoso. He lives in Brooklyn. He is married. and they have a little girl who will soon turn 3 years old. He is a pizza delivery man. He makes $7.25 an hour. but he cant make ends meet. As Gregory told me. if he pays one bill. he cant pay another. He told me: Im delivering food to other people all day. but sometimes I need food stamps so my family can eat. When I look at the bill before us. I think of Gregory and a million other hardworking Americans like him. The bill before us is not for him. Hes lowincome. Under this bill. he loses his priority of service even if he wanted to train to try to get new skills for a better job with better wages to provide for his family. With this bill. he wouldnt be able to. With this bill. we shouldnt ask what it does for people like Gregory but what it does to them. Under the Foxx bill. seniors and youth no longer have wage protections. Lowincome workers no longer get priority of service. The voices of labor and community colleges are squeezed off the Workforce Investment Boards. and the poor and disadvantaged get the shaft. We propose this motion to do something different so that. no matter what happens with the adoption of the Foxx bill. the poor will get a better shot at better jobs. and those who are working in lowwage jobs will get a decent wage. This amendment raises the Federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. It indexes it to inflation. and gives tipped workers a raise for the first time in 20 years. For the first time in 20 years. they will get a shot at a raise and a decent wage for the work that they do in waiting on other people. Without an increase in years. the working poor have been falling further and further behind. While corporate profits soar. while the Dow breaks new records. and while the CEOs take home 380 times the wages of average workers. the lowest paid workers are falling behind. If we vote to raise the minimum wage. we pump more than $32 billion into the economy. money into working peoples pockets. money into Main Street small businesses. money spent locally. money that generates demand. and demand that generates jobs. A minimum wage increase pays for itself. Some businesses might have to pay higher wages. but theyll see higher revenues thanks to higher demand. The number one complaint from small businesses. according to Steve Case. the founder of AOL. is that there are not enough customers on Main Street because theyre not earning enough money. They cant spend on Main Street because theyre not earning enough money. Thats why business owners are coming out for the raiselarge businesses. like the CEO of Costcoencouraging and supporting the minimum wage. small businesses. like the restaurant owner Andy Shallal who came out for the minimum wage. and business leaders like the CEO of the U.S. Womens Chamber of Commerce. In 2005. the chairman of the board of Walmart came out for the minimum wage because. like today. their customers dont have enough money to buy the necessities of life. So think what this means if they can have an increase in the minimum wage. Think what this means to those individuals. Over twothirds of the people in this country support an increase to the minimum wage. A majority of selfidentified Republicans support an increase in the minimum wage. We must understand that this is a pay raise for 30 million Americans. Half of those workers are women in this country. 88 percent of those workers are at least 20 years of age. and 17 million children will live in families that will get an increase in the wages and the incomes to those families. These hardworking Americans have suffered enough in the Great Recession. Enough of the attacks on Medicare. Head Start. and now job training. Lets do something different this time. Lets do something thats right. Lets reward work for people who go to work every day in very difficult jobs. in sometimes very dirty jobs. in sometimes very demeaning jobs. They work every day. and they go home poor. At the end of the year. they end up poor. They work 52 weeksthey end up poor. They work in tough jobsthey end up poor. Now is your opportunity to reward work to provide them. Lets help these individuals. Lets help these families. Lets raise the minimum wage. Its time for $10.10 an hour. Vote "yes" on the final passagethe vote for the minimum wageand protect seniors. protect veterans. protect lowincome workers. I yield back the balance of my time.