Increase the Minimum Wage

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEVIN of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Leger Fernandez.

Let me start by saying what an honor it is to serve with you, and I think this is our first action on the floor. I am really glad you are here, and I appreciate your leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight because too many workers across the country have not received a raise in far too long. They include the frontline and essential workers who have kept our economy going during the worst public health crisis in nearly a century. These workers deserve better pay. That is why we must raise the minimum wage, step- by-step to $15 an hour by 2025, and we have to start doing it right now.

The Federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour for over a decade. This is the longest stretch of time that we have not raised the minimum wage since it was first introduced in 1938.

Mr. Speaker, $7.25 is far too low. That is not an adequate wage for anyone, regardless of age or occupation. It is a poverty wage which prevents workers from realizing the American Dream. By gradually raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, 27 million low-wage workers will get a raise--27 million people. We will lift nearly a million people out of poverty, including a lot of kids. And we will put an extra $333 billion in the pockets of poor and working-class Americans and their families over the next decade.

This money will be a lifeline for the working men and women of this country. It will go towards food. It will go towards rent. It will go towards shoes, other basic necessities, and that will stimulate local economies from coast to coast.

Some detractors say this policy will hurt the economy, and that it is too much too fast. But that is just plain wrong. This proposal raises the minimum wage responsibly over a period of 5 years. Its effective date is 3 months after the bill's enactment, giving employers adequate time to adjust even before the initial increase.

Mr. Speaker, 20 States just raised their minimum wage, going into this year, 2021. And a total of 30 States--red and blue--now have minimum wages higher than the Federal minimum wage. That includes my home State of Michigan, which raised its minimum wage in 2018 and currently has a minimum wage of $9.65. So the first increase under this bill won't even raise wages in Michigan. It is very gradual.

We have not seen the catastrophic predictions of job losses and higher prices on goods come to pass in States that have raised their minimum wage. Representative Leger Fernandez just talked about Santa Fe and her county and her State, but we have a lot of studies showing this to be true from coast to coast.

Indeed, workers have got more pay to buy groceries, to pay for prescription drugs, to shop on their local Main Streets. It is time to make this happen for families in every part of the country.

Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is a commonsense policy that every Member should support. It is the right thing to do morally and practically for the economy, and I am glad that President Biden included it as part of his American Rescue Plan.

Now, let me talk about how the American people feel about this. If Congressional Republicans want to oppose this, they are really out of sync with many of their own voters.

According to a recent poll from Data for Progress, 66 percent of voters support increasing the Federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. In addition, 57 percent of voters support using nonstandard Senate procedures, like the budget reconciliation, to pass this minimum wage increase.

Mr. Speaker, 20 States just raised their minimum wage, as I said, in the last year, but let's focus on Florida.

In November of 2020, Florida voted for Donald Trump--I am not positive of my data here. I think it was by 50.5 percent to 48 percent, I think President Trump won Florida. Well, guess what? A $15-an-hour minimum wage clocked Donald Trump. The same Republican voters and Democratic voters and Independent voters all across Florida who voted for Donald Trump by a slight margin, voted for a $15-an-hour State-wide minimum wage by 61 to 39 percent. It was overwhelming.

In the midst of a pandemic that has killed 500,000 Americans and an economic crisis that has the worst food lines in unemployment since the Great Depression, corporations have been raking in billions while workers are earning poverty wages and they are forced to live off food stamps. That is why so many Americans support this.

Now, what about the argument that $15 an hour is too high?

By 2025, $15 an hour will be the equivalent of $13.62 in 2020 dollars. So it won't even be as high as it appears now, but it will be the minimum amount that a single adult working full time will need to earn a living and to cover core basic living expenses.

Now, check this out: Even in the area with the lowest cost of living in these United States, Beckley, West Virginia, in 2025, a two-parent, two-child household, in which both parents earn $15 an hour and pay taxes, will be $360 short each month to cover basic living expenses. The lowest-cost place in the country, $15 an hour in 2025 won't fully cover basic living expenses.

Furthermore, if the minimum wage had kept pace with productivity, with the increased productivity we create by working, since 1968--so productivity gains from 1968 to today--if the minimum wage had increased at the same rate, it would be over $20 an hour today. And we are proposing just $15 an hour.

So, Representative Leger Fernandez, I am so grateful for you bringing me into this conversation. I feel like this is a question of basic decency, of basic dignity, of the value of work in this country. Every person who gets up and goes to work should be able to provide for their family. And every person, just as you said, should have one job, and that should be enough. One job should be enough. And by the way, that includes everybody.

One of the great things about what we are doing is, we are getting rid of subminimum wages across the board. No subminimums for tip workers, who are overwhelmingly women and workers of color, no subminimum wages for workers with a disability.

We have an opportunity here to bring so many people out of poverty, to give a raise to 27 million people. It is time to do this. We have got to pass it. The Senate has got to pass it. We have a President named Joseph R. Biden, who is ready to sign it. Let's go.

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Mr. LEVIN of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, let me just mention, the gentlewoman is so right that it is a floor. One of these arguments that we hear is, ``We don't want one-size-fits-all,'' right?

Well, first of all, as a labor lawyer, the minimum wage has been one national wage the whole time since 1938. It is simply a floor of decency.

And guess what? You already explained how in 2025, it is not very likely that the minimum wage in Santa Fe, New Mexico, will be $15 an hour. Because in Santa Fe and San Francisco and Los Angeles and New York and Denver--and whatever--places all around this country--the odds are overwhelming that they will have to raise their minimum wage beyond that.

It is a floor of decency. Let's go. Don't you think? Let's go.

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