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Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007

Date: Jan. 10, 2007
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Unemployed and Low-Income


FAIR MINIMUM WAGE ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - January 10, 2007)

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Mr. McHENRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California for yielding this time.

Mr. Speaker, I think there is a critical point that is being overlooked in this debate on the minimum wage. We need to talk about the people that this minimum wage increase will be a barrier to their employment, for example, the physically, emotionally and mentally handicapped in this country.

I have in my district, in Cleveland County, Cleveland Vocational Industries, a community-based organization. What they do is they train workers with disabilities to fulfill certain assembly line packing and labeling projects, what some of us would call menial labor or very simple tasks. But it is a very positive thing. It is a great way to train and employ people that otherwise cannot be trained and employed.

What is going to happen is these are about 8 percent of the total minimum wage earners in this country, those with disabilities. What that is going to do is harm them in their ability to get contracts with businesses.

This is a very nice idea, to raise people's wages, but the impact it is going to have among the least among us will be that they will simply not have a job. I think that is being lost in this debate, and I think that is what we need to be concerned about.

Let's talk about the facts about the minimum wage. That is what is lost here. This is high-minded rhetoric. What the Democrat majority wants to do, Mr. Speaker, is use other people's money to pay other people. Well, that is a very nice thing to do, a nice offer, a very nice thing, to write a check for somebody else.

All right. Let them pay somebody else. That is a nice obligation that we are passing on, this unfunded mandate.

Eighty-five percent of minimum wage earners in this country are teens or adults who live alone or second earners; a married couple, one goes and works part-time. Eighty-five percent of them fall in those categories. So they are talking about making a minimum wage on this and providing for a family of 10, or whatever. It is just empty rhetoric and crazy talk.

So let's talk about affecting and helping people through training and access to health care and support the Republican alternative.

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