Floor Statements

Madam President, we are now debating legislation that will be up for a vote tomorrow. It will be a cloture vote on bringing a minimum wage increase bill to the floor.

Let's be clear about this. It is a cloture vote. This means it is going to take 60 votes, and that will happen tomorrow. I assume most of the day we will be discussing that. I hope so. I know others have come to the floor previously to discuss this.

As the chairman of the committee and as the chief sponsor of this bill, I intend to be back on the floor later today to respond to some of the allegations made by Senators on the other side of the aisle regarding this bill and minimum wage as a concept, but I wish to take a few minutes to sort of set the stage for this legislation and what it is going to mean for our economy and for working Americans.

What I would say at the outset is that the minimum wage bill is about a lot of things: It is going to give an economic boost. It will increase the GDP of our country. It will do a lot of good economically for our society, but basically it is about economic fairness. It is about what kind of society we want America to be.

Keep in mind, the Fair Labor Standards Act which set the minimum wage was passed at the end of the Depression, 1939, when we were still in the Depression, and it was immediately to give a raise in wages to hard-working Americans. That is what it did.

Since that time, actually on both sides of the aisle, we have raised the minimum wage a number of times. This is just another step in making sure that those at the bottom of the economic ladder in America also get a hand up, to get help to make sure they too have a fair shot at the American dream.

So that is what this minimum wage bill is truly about. It is about core American values; the value that no one who works full time all year long should live in poverty. That is what this is about.

The fact is the value of the minimum wage has eroded so much over the last few years that the minimum wage right now is way below poverty. In other words, someone can work full time every day, all year long, and they are still in poverty. But they are working every day. That is not fair. The American value system is one that if someone puts in their work and works hard, they ought not to be living in poverty.

Right now, tens of millions of Americans are struggling just to keep a roof over their heads, to pay the heating bill, to find some money for an extra pair of shoes for a growing child, even getting money together to take the bus to work. Think about this: A minimum wage worker's paycheck has stayed the same since 2009. This chart illustrates what has happened.

If we go back to 2009, the minimum wage has increased zero percent. But

look what has gone up: Electricity has gone up 4.2 percent; rent, 7.3 percent; auto repairs, 7.6 percent; food at home, 8.8 percent. This is since 2009. Childcare has gone up 11.7 percent. Mass transit, which is how people who make minimum wage get back and forth to work, has gone up 17.8 percent since 2009. Yet their paycheck has not gone up.

What does this chart tell us? This tells us that people making minimum wage are falling further and further behind because these are things that low-income Americans have to spend money on: lights, rent, fixing up their old car, food, childcare, and mass transit. Look how much they have gone up. Yet the minimum wage has stayed the same. That is why this is a value issue.

When people who work hard and play by the rules have to rely upon food stamps and food banks to feed their children and the minimum wage has them trapped in poverty, it is unacceptable. It is un-American. It is not what our Nation is about.

So Americans deserve a raise. That is why this bill raises it from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour in three annual steps. It will link the minimum wage to the cost of living in the future. In other words, we index it for the future so we don't have this prospect that as other things increase in price, the minimum wage stays the same. It is time to index it in the future.

Our bill also provides for a raise for tipped workers--the people who serve your food, push the wheelchairs at the airports, and park cars. Every time I tell somebody this, they tell me I can't be right; I must be mistaken. I tell them the tipped wage today is $2.13 an hour, and it has been that way since 1991. Not a 1-cent increase since 1991. People find that hard to believe. It is hard to believe, but it is very true.

So our bill would increase tipped wages from $2.13 an hour up to 70 percent of the minimum wage over a 6-year period of time, the first increase in tipped wages in 23 years.

An increase in the minimum wage benefits everyone. Twenty-eight million workers will get a raise--15 million are women, so over 50 percent of the increase--4 million African-American workers; 7 million Hispanic workers; and 7 million parents will get a raise. And we forget about this. How about our kids? Fourteen million kids will benefit from a minimum wage increase. That means their families will get an increase in the minimum wage. This benefits the kids. So think about the children in America. They are going to get a raise too.

Again, raising the minimum wage helps our families and it helps our economy. This is why we had a press conference this morning with a group called Business for a Fair Minimum Wage. One thousand businesses across the country representing every State in our Nation have signed on saying: Yes, we need to increase the minimum wage to at least $10.10 an hour. They understand and Main Street businesses understand this.

If we increase the minimum wage for people in the community, they are not running off to Paris, France, to spend the money. They are going to spend that money on Main Street, and that helps our small businesses. This is why so many small businesses get it. They understand that if we raise the minimum wage, that helps them. That helps the local economy on Main Street.

The Economic Policy Institute estimates that our minimum wage bill will put $35 billion in the hands of millions of workers, and that money will be spent on Main Street. It will pump an additional $22 billion into our GDP, supporting 85,000 new jobs as the raise is phased in over 3 years.

There is another issue I think we need to address, and that is what happens with low-wage workers and how they do sustain themselves. They are in poverty from the minimum wage. So what do they rely on? They rely on food stamps, Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program. They rely upon the earned-income tax credit and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program. That costs taxpayers in America $243 billion a year.

Again, I am not saying that by increasing the minimum wage we are going to knock that down to zero. I can't say that, but what I can say is that a study was done just on food stamps, and if we raise the minimum wage, in the first year we will save $4.6 billion in taxpayers' money because people will now have enough money to go out and buy their own food. They will not rely on food stamps.

A lot of these other things will be cut back too, such as TANF and Medicaid or CHIP. I can't say how much, but people understand that this is what we are paying as taxpayers to support a minimum wage below the poverty line.

Again, people understand how important this minimum wage is. That is why it is so broadly supported by such a cross-section of American people.

Here is a poll that has been done. A USA Today and Pew Research Center poll this year indicated that 73 percent of all voters support raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour--90 percent Democrats, 71 percent Independents, and even 53 percent of Republicans believe we ought to raise it to at least $10.10 an hour.

So the American people get it. There is overwhelming support for raising the minimum wage. But I am just mystified by how vehemently my Republican colleagues oppose this modest increase. I just don't understand it. But what I hear is the same old outdated, disproved arguments against giving working Americans a raise.

There are some on the other side who believe we should do away with the minimum wage. There should be no minimum wage at all. Try that one on for size. Talk about a race to the bottom. Four dollars an hour maybe? Three dollars an hour? Two dollars an hour? You see, I have always said that without a strong minimum wage and without a good, strong Wage and Hour Division at the Department of Labor to make sure people adhere to it--if we don't have that, then there is always someone a little worse off than you who will bid lower than you for that job.

So someone says: We will pay $7 an hour. There is always somebody that just needs the job a little more, they are desperate, and they say: I will take it for $6 an hour. Then there are some a little worse off than that who say: We will take it for $5 an hour, and we get a downward spiral.

That is why I say our American value is to have a strong minimum wage, whereby people who work hard--and some of these jobs are hard work. People are on their feet 8 hours a day or they are doing some manual labor or they are doing the kind of jobs a lot of people don't do. Yet they live in poverty. It is not right. Raising the minimum wage is common sense that adheres to our American values and gives everyone a fair shot at the American dream.

I hope my colleagues will do the right thing and vote for cloture, allow us to get on the bill. We can have some amendments offered, and we can vote to give working Americans a raise after all these years.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, tomorrow about noon we will be voting on something in the Senate that I daresay a lot of Americans will be paying close attention to. The reason they are going to be paying close attention is because that vote will affect them and their families in the future in a very big way. That vote will be on whether we will actually bring debate to a close and vote on increasing the minimum wage in America.

If we were to bring that to a vote, we could pass it, the President would sign something like that into law, and in 6 months the minimum wage would go up by 95 cents an hour; then next year it would go up by another 95 cents; and the year after another 95 cents from where it is now at $7.25 an hour.

What we are going to vote on tomorrow will have a drastic effect on millions of American families--and it is going to have a big effect on our economy, because it will boost our economy and get the wheels going again, because people will have more money to spend. They will spend it on Main Street. And that is what is lacking right now--consumer demand--consumers with enough money to spend on Main Street. All the economists will basically tell you it is the lack of aggregate demand that is keeping our economy from moving ahead. Tomorrow at noon we will have a vote on that.

Tens of millions of American families are struggling, trying to make ends meet to give their kids a little bit better life. And, quite frankly, a lot of them on low wages are on public assistance which is costing American taxpayers nearly $250 billion every year--in food stamps, earned income tax credits, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, and Medicaid. Add all those up and it is about $243 billion a year.

Taxpayers are subsidizing a lot of these companies that are paying very low wages. Many of the companies that pay such low wages are large, multibillion dollar companies raking in big profits and showering their CEOs with wealth. The average CEO pay of a Standard & Poors 500 company was 21 percent more last year than in 2009. In other words, from 2009 until the end of last year, CEO pay at these 500 companies went up an average of 21 percent. However, since 2009, the minimum wage has not increased 1 penny. The CEO pay averages now about $11.7 million a year, while a minimum-wage worker today makes $15,000 a year. That is working full time, all year, no time off.

It was pointed out to me that a CEO earns that $15,000 by about 11:30 a.m. on the first day of work of the year. Imagine that. By 11:30 a.m. on January 2--assuming they don't work on January 1--they make $15,000. The minimum-wage earner has to work the rest of the year to make that $15,000. And many of these companies are paying the minimum wage.

It is the families who are getting hurt. This is wrong. This is not what America is about. We want people who get up and go to work every day to be able to rely on that work to support themselves. Working families want that, too. They want a paycheck which supports them, gives them a fair shot at being a member of the middle class, and a fair shot of achieving the American dream.

So now we can do something about it. We know that raising the minimum wage will help tens of millions of workers. When we raise it to $10.10, as our bill does, the bottom fifth of the workforce--nearly 30 million workers--will get a raise.

By the time this fully phases in at $10.10 in 3 years, nearly 7 million people will be lifted out of poverty. If we want an antipoverty program, we have it tomorrow when we vote on raising the minimum wage. Seven million people will be lifted out of poverty, and it won't cost the American taxpayers one single dime, and taxpayers basically

will save money because we won't be putting as much money out for public assistance such as food stamps.

I thought it was kind of interesting that the Ryan budget the House passed cuts more than 3.8 million people off of food stamps. In raising the minimum wage, our bill would save billions of dollars--about $4.6 billion a year--not by cutting people off of food stamps, but by getting their income up so that over 3 million people don't have to rely on food stamps. So under the Ryan budget, people are kicked off of food stamps and they still get minimum wage. Under ours, you get a raise in the minimum wage and you don't have to rely on food stamps, and you save about the same amount of money.

Again, I am mystified by how vehemently my Republican colleagues oppose raising the minimum wage. Certainly they must know the polling data, that the vast majority of Americans support raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. But it seems my friends on the Republican side are sort of locked into some philosophy or ideology that says there shouldn't be a minimum wage. In fact, some of my colleagues on the Republican side actually believe there should be no minimum wage. None. Nothing. Well, we got over that 70 years or more ago, in 1938, when we first passed a minimum-wage law in America.

Again, we hear from the other side that by raising the minimum wage there will be this massive loss of jobs. That is simply not true. It is a myth. But it is brought up every time.

I have been in Congress now 40 years. We have raised the minimum wage several times during that period of time both under Democratic and Republican Presidents. Every time it has come up, we hear that same old song: It is going to cost jobs. Guess what. Every time we raise the minimum wage, there has been no big loss of jobs. So there are no historic facts my Republican colleagues can point to to show that raising the minimum wage costs jobs.

They do refer to the Congressional Budget Office study. Actually, that is wrong. It was not a Congressional Budget Office study. They didn't do a study themselves. What they did is looked at the literature out there going back many years on potential job losses. Some of the old studies showed there would be a job loss; under a new study they said there wouldn't be. What CBO did is they averaged them all and said: Here is the average. They didn't say specifically 500,000 jobs would be lost. They said somewhere between zero and 1 million jobs will be lost, so we will pick the midpoint at 500,000. But, again, there is no historical evidence for this in terms of looking back.

We can go back and look at what happened to our economy every time we raised the minimum wage, and there has not been a massive job loss. There has been shifting of jobs. People have been raised out of poverty. Working families do better. But there has been no massive job loss. So this is another myth.

As I said, the historical evidence is there has not been any job loss generally--not among teenagers, not among restaurant workers. In fact, this year there has been more job growth in the 13 States that raised their State minimum wages at the start of this year than in the States that didn't raise their minimum wage. Let me repeat that. There has been more job growth in States that raised their minimum wage beginning in January of this year than in the States that didn't raise their minimum wage. A lot of businesses are now understanding this. They understand that, as economists will tell you, it is the lack of aggregate demand: not enough customers. People don't have enough money.

My Republican friends want to give more money to the top, more tax cuts for the wealthy. They get more money--millions more--a year. They don't necessarily spend that on Main Street. They may go to Paris, they may buy a new jet, a new big yacht. They do things like that, but it doesn't really put money right on Main Street.

What small businesses and most economists know is that when you raise the minimum wage, those people who get that raise aren't going off to Paris. They aren't buying a private jet. They are spending it on Main Street in their local stores and local businesses, and that gives a great economic boost to our whole economy.

So when we focus on the best research, the latest research that has been done, it unequivocally shows that raising the minimum wage does not cause a job loss. Again, 600 economists, including 7 Nobel prize winners, have endorsed a minimum wage hike of $10.10 an hour. Six hundred economists, including 7 Nobel prize winners, signed a letter supporting $10.10.

We urge you to act now and enact a three-step raise of 95

cents a year for three years--which would mean a minimum wage

of $10.10 by 2016--and then index it to protect against

inflation . . . these proposals will also usefully raise the

tipped minimum wage to 70 percent of the regular minimum.

The evidence now shows that increases in the minimum wage

have had little or no negative effect on the employment of

minimum-wage workers. Even during times of weakness in the

labor market research suggests that a minimum-wage increase

could have a small stimulative effect on the economy, as low-

wage workers spend their additional earnings raising demand

and job growth and providing some help on the job front.

So, again, forget about the job loss. That is not going to take place. What will take place is we will lift 7 million people out of poverty and 14 million children in America will be in families who will get a raise. That will be good for our kids.

We also hear from Republicans that some of the people who are going to benefit from a raise in the minimum wage aren't the poorest of the poor. It is not just people below the poverty line, but a lot of other people will make more money, so therefore it must not be a good policy.

First of all, I want to dispel the myth that raising the minimum wage does not affect poverty. It does. Whether you use the CBO estimate of close to 1 million workers lifted out of poverty or the results of more sophisticated economic research showing that up to 7 million workers will be lifted out of poverty by the time the bill is fully implemented, the evidence unequivocally shows that raising the minimum wage is an effective poverty-reduction tool.

But I will be the first to admit--and gladly, proudly--that this bill doesn't just help people in poverty. It also helps low-income families who are above the poverty line, and that is a good thing. That is a good thing. A lot of low-income working families will get a raise. Here is basically the breakdown: 52 percent of those who will get a raise have family incomes under $40,000; 31 percent, $60,000; and 17 percent, $40 to $60,000. So, again, it is for the people. Families making $40,000 a year will actually get a boost. How could that be? One person may be making $20,000 and the other person may be making $15,000 or $18,000. They get a boost in the minimum wage, and they benefit. Is that wrong? I don't think that is wrong at all. These are still struggling families, struggling to make sure they get enough for their kids, make sure they put a little away for a rainy day, help their kids get a good education.

Evidently, our friends the Republicans are saying: Look, we should only have something that benefits those who are in extreme poverty. Then they turn around in the Ryan budget and cut food stamps. What are they saying? You know what they are really saying: Tough luck. You are on your own. If you are a minimum wage worker, tough luck, and we don't want to raise your minimum wage.

Well, 69 percent of the workers who would get a raise under this bill have incomes that are under $60,000. So, yes, not everybody who is going to get a benefit from this is in poverty, but it will raise nearly 7 million people out of poverty and will also help some of our lower and middle-income families in America. I say that is a good thing, and I am proud that it does.

Consider an example. Jane and Joe--those are not their real names-- are from Buchanan County in Iowa. They have two young boys. She is a waitress and earns a few dollars an hour plus tips. He works at a gas station for $7.25 an hour. They rely on food stamps and Medicaid. They have applied for assistance through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. They work opposite shifts, so they don't have to pay for childcare--and it is difficult to find adequate care for their younger son's medical needs--but this means they hardly ever see each other. A minimum wage increase would allow them to be together more as a family.

David is a pizza cook in Iowa. He is getting married soon and has a child on

the way. He earns $9 an hour at his pizza job. So what did he do? He took on another job framing houses. He is working about 65 hours a week, no overtime. He has two jobs, so he is working 65 hours a week. That is still not enough. If he worked an entire year at 65 hours a week, he would only earn $30,400 a year. He is working 65 hours a week. That is technically above the poverty line, but no one would say he is making plenty of money and he couldn't use a raise. He is starting a family.

When we raise the minimum wage, David will get a raise at both of his jobs. At one job he is making $9 an hour, and at the other job he is making $9 an hour. He gets a raise at both. He told the Quad City Times that a minimum wage raise would mean quite a bit to improve his life and help his growing family. So, yes, he is making 30,400 bucks a year working 65 hours a week--two jobs.

You say: No, he shouldn't get this minimum wage increase.

That is what I hear from my Republican colleagues. But these are the types of families who are struggling. They need a boost, and we want to give them a boost. We want to help them earn more money--not get more in food stamps or government programs but earn more money to provide for their families and build a better life and have a fair shot at the American dream.

My Republican friends are not only opposing a raise, they are proposing drastic cuts to programs that low-wage workers must rely on to survive. As I said earlier, the Ryan budget cuts more than 3.8 million people off of food stamps, leaving them without any lifeline to put food on the table. By contrast, raising the minimum wage would reduce the food stamp rolls by almost the same amount--as many as 3.6 million people--because it would allow them to earn enough money to buy food for themselves. Both proposals save the taxpayer money, but under our proposal people get to eat. They get to put food on the table.

I have a hard time giving a lot of credence to people who say the increase of the minimum wage doesn't really help people who are in poverty. It is untrue. The professed concern about the poorest of the poor stands in stark contrast with a Republican agenda that would increase poverty and sacrifice a program that helps low-wage working families survive.

Now I want to dispel another myth--that it would hurt small business. We hear about this all the time, but every small business I have talked to says their biggest problem is not payroll costs; it is lack of demand, lack of customers. They don't have customers with money to spend. So raising the minimum wage would help their bottom line.

A lot of small businesses I talk to also tell me they are frustrated, infuriated by the fact that their competitors--the Walmarts and McDonalds and other big businesses--pay rock-bottom wages that force their workers into public assistance. Well, this places responsible small businesses at a competitive disadvantage. It forces them to subsidize their competitors' low wages through their tax dollars. That is not fair. It is bad for workers, small business, and our economy. Small business owners understand this, and that is why the majority of them support this bill. Again, opinion polls--small businesses support the minimum wage 57 percent to 43 percent because they understand that a raise in the minimum wage means their customers are going to have more money to spend on Main Street.

That is why today I received a letter from Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, and 1,000 businesses, large and small, across the country support raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour--1,000 all across America. I ask unanimous consent to have this letter printed in the Record following my remarks.

So this letter and the polls show that most small businesses get it. They know that increases in the minimum wage will increase consumer demand. They also know they will have loyal, productive workers who will stay longer and save businesses from having to constantly hire and train new people. Experienced workers who have been on the job longer are more efficient and deliver great customer service that keeps customers coming back.

Finally, some of my Republican colleagues have suggested that we shouldn't raise the minimum wage because they are better served by the earned-income tax credit. I support the earned-income tax credit, and, unlike many of my colleagues on the other side, I actually want to see it expanded so it better serves young and childless workers. Right now, if you are under the age of 25 and you are making the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, you are making too much money to qualify for the earned- income tax credit. If you are over age 25 and you make the minimum wage, $7.25 an hour, and you have one child, you get $3,250 in earned- income tax credit, plus your childcare tax credit. That gets you up to 19,300 bucks a year. What a deal. But if you are childless, you get no earned-income tax credit.

The veterans who were mentioned earlier--let's say a vet went into the military when he or she was age 18. They got out after 3 years, 21 or 22, and they went out and got a job, a minimum wage job. They do not get the earned-income tax credit.

I am for expanding it. Let's expand the earned-income tax credit to cover childless workers under the age of 25. My Republican colleagues won't support that. They won't support that.

The earned-income tax credit does provide some good support, but think about this: It only does it once a year. The only time you get the earned-income tax credit is after you file your taxes--then you get a refund. That is once a year. Families don't live like that, especially low-income families. They have a budget month after month for heating, for electricity, for fuel, for car repairs, for clothes for the kids. They cannot count on what is going to happen next year. Their income tax credit is good, but it only happens once a year. That is not very good for budgeting purposes for any family. After all, the gas company will turn your gas off in the winter even if you are going to get an earned-income tax credit next April or May. They don't take that into account. They take into account the fact that you cannot pay your bill then. So the best way to help low-income families--minimum wage-earning families plus low-income families--the best way to help them throughout the year is to increase the minimum wage.

Again, all the arguments we hear from the other side of the aisle don't hold water. Today, while what I heard from the other side of the aisle is more talk about the Keystone Pipeline--as if that is going to solve all our problems--all we have to do is build the Keystone Pipeline, and that solves all of our problems. It does? The restaurant worker in Maine, the hospital orderly in South Carolina, the parking lot attendant in Mississippi--they are all going to benefit from the Keystone Pipeline? I don't think so. Somehow that is going to take the place of raising the minimum wage.

So they are trying a little diversion on this Keystone Pipeline. We will provide some jobs, yes, for a couple of years, and when that is over, then what are you left with? And those kinds of jobs are not the kinds of jobs low-income workers would get, which would be pretty high- skilled, high-paying jobs for the Keystone Pipeline. So it doesn't really hold water that the Keystone Pipeline is going to be the end-all and be-all for the economy. It just won't.

Raising the minimum wage is the most commonsense, practical thing we can do right now to help low-income families, give a boost to our economy, and save the taxpayers money. So I hope all my colleagues will do the right thing.

So I hope all of my colleagues will do the right thing tomorrow, allow us to proceed to debate, and vote on increasing the minimum wage. Millions of American families will be watching this vote tomorrow. If they are working hard during the day, they won't be tuning in to C- SPAN, but they will read about it, and they will know what this Senate did about their paychecks and what we did about their desire to have a better life for their families, for their kids, and for their future.

I will also say this. If my Republican colleagues will join with us-- at least five or six of them because we need 60 votes to get over the filibuster--if we get five or six, then we can move to the bill. I hope we will get 5 or 6 or 8 or 10 Republicans who will join us. If not, we

will be back. This issue is not going away. I can guarantee we will be back. We will be back again and again and again.

The American people need a raise. CEOs are getting their raises: a 21-percent increase since 2009--a 21-percent increase, an average CEO is paid; zero increase for minimum wage workers. It is now time to play a little catchup ball and provide fairness for low-income workers in America. So that is the vote tomorrow--a values vote, American values, family values, sound economic values. That is what the vote is about tomorrow. I hope and I trust that some of my colleagues on the Republican side will join with us so we can move ahead to give working Americans a raise and a fair shot at the American dream.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to express my strong support for the nomination of Dr. David Weil to serve as Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division at the Department of Labor.

The Wage and Hour Division oversees some of the most fundamental protections for American workers: it ensures that people are paid fairly in accordance with our minimum wage and overtime laws. It protects vulnerable children when our child labor laws are abused. It ensures that workers can spend time with their families when a new baby is born or a health crisis is looming. In short, this relatively unknown agency plays a huge role in how Americans experience their day- to-day working lives.

However despite this important mission, this critical agency was unfortunately allowed to atrophy during the last administration. The division took a backseat approach that relied almost exclusively on complaint-driven enforcement--relying on the questionable assumption that vulnerable workers know their rights and will approach the agency to report violations of the law--rather than taking a more proactive approach to educate workers and seek out industries and populations where abuses are likely to happen. Furthermore, even this complaint- driven system was often poorly managed--the Government Accountability Office issued a harshly critical report finding that Wage and Hour ``frequently responded inadequately'' to those complaints that it did receive.

The current administration has corrected these problems and beefed up enforcement, revitalizing this essential agency. It has improved the complaint process and encouraged ``strategic enforcement'' that is geared to efficiently using limited resources to maximize compliance with the law.

With this new vision, the division has made great strides. Over the past 5 years, the Wage and Hour Division has returned more than $1.1 billion in stolen wages to workers whose rights were violated. They have done the best job ever of targeting their investigations to the workplaces that have the most violations, even when the workers felt too threatened or too disempowered to complain. The Division also successfully completed vital regulations to expand minimum wage and overtime protections to nearly 2 million home health aides. As a result of the division's efforts, these hardworking people will soon get the most basic of worker protections, and our country will benefit from a more stable and reliable workforce to assist people with disabilities and our elderly loved ones live full and independent lives.

There are certainly more challenges ahead for Wage and Hour. In addition to implementing the new minimum wage rules for home care workers in a careful and thoughtful manner, the division will be tasked with developing an important new Obama administration initiative to update our outdated overtime rules. I am a strong supporter of this effort. Too many Americans are working longer and harder without anything to show for their efforts in their paycheck. Often low-wage and modestly paid workers can be forced to work long hours without overtime compensation because the threshold for determining which workers are automatically eligible for overtime pay is set too low. It is long past time to update these rules, to prevent abuses of low-wage workers and ensure fair compensation for those who work long hours.

The Wage and Hour Division will also be tasked with implementing any minimum wage legislation passed here in Congress. While we will, of course, set the contours of the law here in Congress, the Wage and Hour Division will be tasked with ensuring that employees and employers are educated about the new law and that employers are complying with its requirements.

In facing these critical challenges, I can think of no one better to lead the Wage and Hour Division into the future than Dr. David Weil. Dr. Weil is one of the Nation's leading experts on enforcement of wage and hour, safety and health, and other workplace regulations. He has spent the last 20 years teaching at Boston University's School of Management, where he has done extensive empirical research on the prevalence of wage and hour violations and the effectiveness of different enforcement strategies. Because of his expertise, he has been called on to work extensively with Labor Department officials for many years to help them improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Wage and Hour Division. He has served as a consultant to the Department of Labor under both Democratic and Republican administrations, and has also advised both Democratic and Republican officials at the State level. His expertise on these issues is indisputable.

Dr. Weil also approaches these issues from a unique perspective. He has spent two decades as a professor of management at a business school, teaching a course on strategic decision-making for businesses. This insight into businesses' decision-making process will be invaluable to working at the Wage and Hour Division--both to understand businesses better and to work with them more effectively. Dr. Weil also has extensive experience in collaborating with a variety of groups, often playing a role of mediator and advisor--skills that will help him work effectively with both worker advocates and the business community to advance the mission of the Wage and Hour Division.

Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have taken issue with Dr. Weil's scholarship promoting strategic enforcement. I will confess that I find these criticisms hard to understand. The basic idea that Dr. Weil has articulated is that we have limited enforcement resources, and that we should target those resources--to the best of our ability--to industries where there is an objectively verifiable pattern of noncompliance and where workers are particularly vulnerable to abuse.

This is a commonsense approach, especially in times of tight budgets. We need to be trying to get the best bang for our enforcement buck, and Dr. Weil has some great ideas for how to do that. I would think all the fiscal conservatives in this Chamber would be applauding his suggestions to build a more efficient and effective Wage and Hour Division. This sort of innovative thinking and strategic and efficient planning will be a tremendous asset to the agency.

Indeed, a group of Dr. Weil's peers, respected academics at a variety of universities, strongly agree with this conclusion. They note: David is one of if not the nation's leading expert on enforcement of safety and health, wage and hour, and other workplace regulations. He has done extensive research

on the effectiveness of different enforcement strategies and has worked intensively with Labor Department officials for many years to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the policies he will be entrusted to administer. The letter also notes his ``long history of public service,'' including his work with current and former agency leadership on both the Democratic and Republican sides. I ask unanimous consent to have the text of this letter printed in the Record.

As this letter confirms, while Dr. Weil has never worked directly for the division, he is intimately familiar with its mission and operations. He knows the Department, he knows the laws, and he can hit the ground running to move this important agency forward.

It is clear that Dr. Weil is an exemplary candidate to administer the Wage and Hour Division. It is unfortunate that the Wage and Hour Division has been without a Senate-confirmed leader for many years now, and I am glad that we will soon be able to change that. I thank Dr. Weil for his willingness to go through this process, and for his commitment to public service. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this nomination and allow it to move forward quickly so that Dr. Weil can get to work doing the important business of the Wage and Hour Division.

I object.

Madam President, I certainly favor the goals of this legislation. The Senator will remember we passed a childcare bill that included many of the same background check provisions for childcare employees. Those provisions were negotiated between Democrats and Republicans on our committee to address issues that were raised about the implementation of any federally prescribed background checks for childcare settings.

We would like to undertake a similar process in the K-12 context to ensure any concerns raised by either side be addressed. That is what the committee process is for.

What the Senator from Pennsylvania is asking for in this bill will have an impact on nearly every public school in the country and every employee, not just teachers--not just teachers--who might have any unsupervised access to children. So that requires us to do some due diligence.

I don't want anyone to misunderstand me. I am willing to work with the Senator from Pennsylvania and others on this legislation, but I do believe we need to take a closer look at it, talking with relevant stakeholders--States, school districts, employees--about the bill and some perhaps unintended consequences of it. We were able to do that in the childcare bill, and I believe we can achieve similar success with the legislation of the Senator from Pennsylvania. I am ready and willing to engage with the Senator, his staff, and his office in that process.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today the Senate is voting to confirm Terrell McSweeny's nomination to an open seat on the Federal Trade Commission. This vote is long overdue as the FTC has lacked a full complement of Commissioners for more than a year. The confirmation of Ms. McSweeny will bring the Commission to a full complement of Commissioners and ensure that the mission of consumer protection can be fully realized.

Ms. McSweeny is a highly qualified candidate. She has already served as Domestic Policy Advisor to Vice President Joe Biden. She has worked here in the Senate--first as a page while still in high school and later as then-Senator Biden's Deputy Chief of Staff and Policy Director, and she has been a lawyer in private practice. She is a graduate of Harvard University and Georgetown University Law School. I have had the privilege of knowing Terrell McSweeney for a number of years, and I have every confidence that she will make an excellent FTC Commissioner.

The FTC undertakes critical work to ensure that Americans are protected from deceptive and misleading advertising and marketing and to ensure that American businesses do not engage in unfair and anticompetitive practices. I would like to commend the Senate for taking up her nomination and urge my colleagues to support Ms. McSweeny's confirmation as a Commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission.

Madam President, today is Equal Pay Day. I mentioned that to someone earlier and they said: What does that mean? What that means is an American woman working full time in America today--I am talking about an average American woman working full time, year-round--had to work all last year and up to today of this year to earn what the average male made last year up to December 31. That is what Equal Pay Day is. Think about that. A man gets paid up to December 31, and a woman has to work all that year and up to today to get the same pay.

It is shocking that in 2014 that is still happening in America-- shocking--because we passed the Equal Pay Act in 1963. In 1963, a woman made about 60 cents on the dollar for what a man made. Today, it is 77 cents, so I guess we can say we have made some headway. So 1963, 1973, 1983--in 40 years, we have gone from 60 cents to 77 cents.

What we found out, through our committee hearings of the committee I am privileged to chair, the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, is that a lot of employers in this country are not abiding by some of the provisions of the Equal Pay Act. I compliment Senator Mikulski, who is a member of our committee as well as the Chair of the full Appropriations Committee, for her leadership in bringing this bill, the Paycheck Fairness Act, to the Senate.

When we passed it in 1963, 25 million female workers, as I said, earned about 60 cents on the dollar. Now it is 77 cents. Again, the deficit and what it means for a lifetime of earnings is startling. Over the course of a 40-year career, women, on average, earn more than $450,000 less than men. And get this: Women with a college degree, or more, face an even wider gap of more than $700,000 over a lifetime compared with men with the same higher education. So, again, the consequences are enormous, impacting not just women but their families as well, and not just impacting women during their working lives, but keep this in mind: When a woman is making that much less, then a woman is getting that much less in her retirement, in her Social Security, or maybe her 401(k), or a defined benefit, whatever it might be. So women get whacked twice during their working life and then when they retire because they have made substantially less than men.

Again, I congratulate Senator Mikulski for bringing this bill forward and for her indefatigable work on this issue. It is time to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. It is simple, commonsense legislation to make sure we have procedures and processes that are in place, to make sure the Equal Pay Act, passed in 1963, has some teeth, so employers can't just skirt around it anymore, and so there will be avenues for women to take to make sure they are not discriminated against in terms of pay.

For example, right now it can be a violation of company policy if a woman wants to talk to another person about what their salary is. Some companies say employees can't do that. This bill says, yes, employees can do that. Employees can talk to someone else. They don't have to tell--we don't force anybody to tell what their salary is--but an employee can make inquiries and can discuss it with other fellow employees, and an employer cannot retaliate against an employee for doing that. That is a huge step forward, by the way: a little bit of transparency, a little bit of knowledge that a woman can have to understand whether she is being discriminated against in her employment.

Of course, we have a good deal of anecdotal evidence and many examples of employers retaliating against women for discussing salary information. So this bill is long overdue and we need to pass it.

We can't just stop there on this paycheck fairness bill. We have to pass it and then we have to do a few other things. We have to tackle the more subtle discrimination that occurs when we systematically undervalue the work traditionally done by women. The fact is millions of female-dominated jobs--jobs that are equivalent in skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions to similar jobs dominated by men--pay significantly less than male equivalent-type jobs. For example, why is a housekeeper worth less than a janitor? Think about it: Eighty-four percent of the maids such as those who clean our rooms in hotels--are female; 75 percent of janitors are male. While the jobs are equivalent in terms of skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions, the median weekly earnings for a maid are $399. For a janitor, it is $484.

Truckdrivers--a job that is 96-percent male--have median weekly earnings of $730. In contrast, a childcare worker--a job that is 93- percent female--has median weekly earnings of $390. Why do we value someone who moves products more than we value someone who looks after the safety and well-being of our children? I am not saying that truckdrivers are overpaid; I am just saying that jobs we consider ``women's work'' are often underpaid, even though they are equivalent in skills, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. Quite frankly, some of the jobs women do, such as nursing or home health aides, require a lot more physical effort than being a truckdriver. Maybe in the old days truckdrivers had to be strong to muscle those trucks around. Now everybody has power steering and power brakes and everything else. A person doesn't have to be some big, heavy-weight giant to drive trucks anymore. But to be a nursing aide, if you are rolling people who weigh over 250 pounds and doing other things, that can take quite a bit of effort. So why are nursing and home health aides paid so much less than truckdrivers?

That is why in every Congress since 1996 I have introduced the Fair Pay Act, which would require employers to provide equal pay for equivalent jobs. My counterpart in the House is Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, and together we have introduced it in every Congress since 1996. It requires employers to provide equal pay for jobs that are equivalent in skills, effort, responsibility, and working conditions, but which are dominated by employees of a different gender, race, or national origin.

People may say maybe that is a stretch. Well, in 1983, the legislature of my State of Iowa, working with a Republican Governor, passed a bill stipulating that the State of Iowa could not discriminate in compensation between predominantly male and female jobs. They had to pay equivalent wages. So they hired Arthur Young & Company and they evaluated 800 job classifications in State government and, finally, in April of 1984, determined that 10,751 employees should be given a pay increase. Since 1984 in Iowa we have had that equivalency.

In Minnesota, our neighbor to the north and the neighbor of the Presiding Officer to the east, they went even a step further. Minnesota at that time passed a bill providing for equivalent pay not only in State jobs but clear down to the local level. That was in Minnesota. So it can be done. The women in this country are currently being paid less not because of their skills, not because of their education, working conditions, or responsibility, but simply because they are in what we call female-dominated jobs. This bill would make sure they receive their real worth. It will make a huge difference for them and their families who rely on their wages.

What my bill would do basically is require employers to publicly disclose their job categories and their pay scales. They wouldn't have to publish what every employee is making; they would have to say here are our job classifications and here are the pay scales in those job classifications. So it would give women information about what their male colleagues are earning or anyone who is in that pay scale, so they can negotiate a better deal for themselves in the workplace. Right now, women who believe they are a victim of pay discrimination must file a lawsuit and endure a drawn-out legal discovery process to find out whether they make less than the man working beside them, but with statistics readily available, this could be avoided. The number of lawsuits would go down if employees could see upfront whether they are being treated fairly.

Several years ago our committee had Lilly Ledbetter come and testify before our committee. We had provided her with a copy of the Fair Pay Act that I have been introducing since 1996, and she took a look at it and its description. I asked her, if the Fair Pay Act had been law when she was hired, would it have obviated her wage discrimination case. She said with the information about pay scales the bill provides, she would have known from the beginning she was a victim of discrimination and could have tried to address the problem sooner before it caused a lifelong drop in her earnings and before she had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to make things right.

So, again, it is time to get done and put some teeth in it, but it is time to take the next step, because the biggest gap right now between what women make and what men make--among the various known reasons for the gap, like education, race, union status, and work experience--is occupation; that is, the number of women who are in what we have traditionally known as women's jobs--housekeepers, maids, child care workers, nurse assistants, and so on. It is time to take the step that my State and Minnesota--and there are other States; I just mentioned those two because I am familiar with them--have taken to address this problem of equivalency.

The next thing we need to do to make sure Equal Pay Day is not today but is December 31, like when men get paid for a full year, is to raise the minimum wage. Hopefully, we will be voting on that soon to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour.

Again, the majority of low-wage workers are women because of the trends I just mentioned. Jobs primarily held by women are undervalued and underpaid and most of the low-wage workers are women. So again we have to raise that, and we need to raise tipped wages.

Tipped wages right now are $2.13 an hour. It has not been changed since 1991. Who are most of the tipped workers? Women, and many of them are providing income for their families, for their children. I said this the other day to a group and they were astounded. They thought I must be wrong about it, but I am not wrong. Do you know how someone gets classified as a tipped worker? A lot of people do not know this. How does someone get classified as a tipped worker? Under the law, if their employer says they make more than $30 a month in tips, they can be classified as a tipped worker. Think about that, $30 a month.

Let's say if someone works 5 days a week and they are working 20 days a month, that is $1.50 a day. If they get $1.50 a day in tips, they can be classified as a tipped worker and they can pay them $2.13 an hour-- unconscionable.

It has not been raised since 1991. Our minimum wage bill, which we hope to have on the floor shortly, would raise that tipped wage over 6 years from its present level to 70 percent of the minimum wage, and then it is indexed for the future.

So there are three things we need to do: pass the Paycheck Fairness Act championed by Senator Mikulski, address and pass the Fair Pay Act, and

raise the minimum wage. If we do those three things, Equal Pay Day will not be today, it will be December 31 for everybody.

Madam President, I see the time has come to recess for the caucuses, but I just wish to say that today is another important day. Today is the 150th anniversary of the date that Abraham Lincoln signed the law authorizing the institution we now know as Gallaudet University in Washington, DC. That was 150 years ago today. What began on April 8, 1864, as a school with just eight students has flourished into the world's first and only institution of higher education dedicated to deaf and hard-of-hearing students, renowned internationally for its outstanding academic programs and also for its leading research into the history, language, and culture of deaf people.

I take pride in the fact that it was Senator James W. Grimes of Iowa, then-chair of the Committee on the District of Columbia, who initiated that legislation allowing the school to confer degrees. Dr. T. Alan Hurwitz, who is now the current distinguished president of Gallaudet, was born and raised in Sioux City, IA, not too far from the Presiding Officer's State of North Dakota. In fact, Dr. Hurwitz's father and my brother were classmates at the Iowa School for the Deaf. We are proud of the many Iowa students, including a recent intern in my office, Joseph Lewis, who are graduates of Gallaudet.

It is a wonderful school. If you have never been there, you ought to go and take a look at it. They do fantastic work at Gallaudet, attracting people from all around the globe to go there. In 1894 it was named after Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, and then in 1986 it was conferred university status by the Congress. Again, 150 years ago today, on April 8, 1864, Abraham Lincoln signed it into law.

In 1864, the school was known as the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and Blind. It was inspired by the work of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, who had traveled to Paris to study the successful work of French educators who pioneered the use of a manual communication method of instructing the deaf--in other words, sign language. In 1894, the name of the institution was changed to Gallaudet College in honor of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. In 1986, by act of Congress, the college was granted university status.

My brother Frank was deaf from an early age. During his childhood, in the 1940s and 1950s, most Americans had very backward, ignorant attitudes toward deaf people. It pained me to witness the brazen discrimination and prejudice that he faced on a daily basis and I promised that if I ever got into a position of power, I would change things to prevent that kind of discrimination in the future.

As it turned out, I did rise to a position of power. I was determined to make good on my promise to pass legislation to end discrimination against people with disabilities, and an unexpected event gave a huge impetus to my legislative ambition.

In 1988, Gallaudet University was hiring a new president. At that time, the school had never had a deaf president. There were three candidates: one was deaf and two were hearing. The Board of Visitors selected a hearing president.

To the students at Gallaudet, who believed passionately that the time had come for a deaf president, this was unacceptable. They rose up in a movement that came to be known as Deaf President Now. They organized protests. They boycotted classes. Some 2,000 Gallaudet students marched from their campus to the U.S. Capitol Building. They demanded a president at Gallaudet who could relate to them in a way that no hearing person could.

I had the privilege of speaking to them. I told them, ``You are my heroes.'' They are still my heroes because they kept up their protests until they won. Gallaudet got its first deaf president, I. King Jordan.

But that is not all those students won. The protests by the students at Gallaudet struck a chord with other people with disabilities all across America. Those students were like a spark that ignited a brushfire.

They rose up and said: Enough. No more second-class citizenship. No more discrimination. And other people with disabilities took up the same rallying cry.

As the chief Senate sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, there is no question in my mind that the students' successful protests at Gallaudet were one of the key reasons why we were able to pass the ADA 2 years later.

Today, Gallaudet University is a diverse, bilingual university dedicated to the intellectual and professional advancement of deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals through American Sign Language and English. I have always been an admirer and supporter of Gallaudet. I respect it as a place that opens doors and creates opportunity. At Gallaudet, the focus is on ability, not disability, and, as with all schools, sometimes it is on extraordinary ability, such as Adham Talaat, the academic all-American defensive end who helped to lead the Gallaudet football team to a 9 and 1 record this past season or faculty member Dr. Laura-Ann Pettito and her Visual Language and Visual Learning Center, where she and her graduate students map the brain to better understand how we decode auditory and visual language or 2011 graduate James Caverly, who starred in the play ``Tribes'' about a hearing family with a deaf son.

Gallaudet aims not only to educate but also to empower, and this is an incredibly important gift to give to the men and women who attend Gallaudet. I join with my colleagues in the Senate in saluting this remarkable institution on its 150th anniversary.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Paul Osadebe and Emily Schwartz, interns with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of today's session.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will to meet on April 9, 2014, at 10 a.m., in room SD-430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Addressing Primary Care Access and Workforce Challenges: Voices from the Field.''

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Bill Gendel of the committee staff on (202) 224-5480.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will to meet on April 10, 2014, at 10 a.m., in room SD-430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Expanding Access to Quality Early Learning: the Strong Start for America's Children Act.''

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Aissa Canchola of the committee staff on (202) 224-5363.

Mr. President, I want to thank our majority whip again for telling it like it is and what is happening with health care in America today. We have come too far to turn back. We have made tremendous changes in the way people are going to access the health care system in America because of the Affordable Care Act.

Look, we all admit there were mistakes made. Were there glitches? Yes. But we went from a system where people were excluded from getting health care, and Senator Durbin talked about them. There are various people with preexisting conditions, kids and people who had no access to health care whatsoever, and now they are covered. That is a huge leap in this country. We made some mistakes, had a few glitches, and we worked those out.

Our friends on the other side say: No, ditch the whole thing. Get rid of everything. Turn the clock back. I agree with the Senator from Illinois, people don't want to turn the clock back. They want to move ahead. They are getting covered more than ever before with affordable coverage they have never had before and we are not going to turn the clock back. I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, I want to take the time this morning to talk about an issue that has been brewing for a long time and is going to come to a head in the Senate sometime in the next several days, I hope, and it is one which compels us to do something, and that is to raise the minimum wage in the United States of America. We have waited too long to do this, and so we have to act on it as soon as possible.

I wish to point out some of the data and some of the statistics confronting us right now. First of all, why should anyone be afraid of voting to raise the minimum wage? The American people are way ahead of us on this. Let's look at the polling data.

This chart shows the results of a poll to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. It shows that 73 percent of all voters want to raise the minimum wage, and that 90 percent of Democrats, 71 percent of Independents, and even 53 percent of Republicans say we ought to be raise the minimum wage. The vast majority of American people want to do this.

This is again a chart from across the country. We have Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, my State of Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Wisconsin-- 52 percent, 73 percent, 61 percent, and 54 percent. The vast majority of Americans in these States say: Yes, we need to raise the minimum wage, so it is not just one part of the country.

Small business owners support raising the minimum wage. A poll done of small business owners shows that 57 percent say we should raise the minimum wage as opposed to 43 percent. Small businesses get it.

The voters say that raising the minimum wage will help the economy. This comports with over 600 economists--including what several Nobel prize economists have said--who say that raising the minimum wage will boost aggregate demand and raise the GDP in America. The economy will benefit.

Well, you know what. The American people get it. They may not understand all of the intricacies of economics and economic analysis, but they get it. Of those who were polled, 56 percent believe it will help the economy, 22 percent said they don't know, and only 21 percent say it will hurt the economy. The vast majority of Americans understand in their bones that raising the minimum wage is going to help the economy. Why? Because they know it will put more spending power in their pockets.

When people in lower wage jobs get more money, what do they do? They don't go to Europe, they don't buy private islands and private jets, they spend it in the local economy, such as Main Street, where the small businesses are. Again, the American people get it.

Why should we be concerned about this right now? The minimum wage has not kept up with average wages. In 1968, the minimum wage was 53 percent of the average wage in America. Today it is 36 percent of the average wage in America, which is a tremendous decline between those who get the minimum wage and what the average wages are in America.

Since 2009, the last time we had an increase in the minimum wage, let's look at what happened to the things that low-income people have to spend their money on. As I said, they are not renting private jets and they are not going to fancy restaurants to eat, but they do have to spend money on electricity, rent, auto repair, food at home, childcare, and mass transit. So the minimum wage has gone up 0 percent since 2009. Electricity has gone up 4.2 percent, rent has gone up 7.3 percent, auto repair has gone up 7.6 percent, food at home has gone up 8.8 percent, childcare has gone up 11.7 percent, and mass transit has had a 18- percent increase. If you are a minimum wage worker, all of your costs have gone up, but your income has basically stayed the same.

Here is another thing the American people get; they understand this. CEOs get big raises. Since 2009, the last time we had an increase in the minimum wage, CEO raises have gone up 23 percent, 14 percent, and 5 percent, which is about 40-some percent. Minimum wage has stayed the same. Those at the top keep getting more and more and more, but low- income workers get nothing. They keep falling further and further behind.

How are we doing compared to other countries? We always say, we are doing all right. What are we doing compared to other countries? Here is an example of the national minimum wage rate in nominal U.S. dollars. Right now the United States is third from the bottom. There is Portugal, Spain, and there is the United States. Look at who is ahead of us: Austria, Japan, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Ireland, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, and Australia. Australia's minimum wage is $16.34 an hour in U.S. dollars. France's minimum wage is $11.98, Ireland is $11.16; New Zealand is at $10.96 an hour. We are way behind other countries in what the minimum wage is.

Here is who benefits: Twenty-eight million workers will get a raise if we raise the minimum wage. Fifteen million women, thirteen million men, four million African-American workers--I will have more to say about that--7 million Hispanic workers, and 7 million parents will get a raise. Again, that is not just minimum wage workers. Almost everyone who makes less than $10.10 an hour--and many who earn just above $10.10--will get a raise. It will not just be those who are making $7.25, there will be a lot of other people who will also get a raise.

That is another thing I have heard from my Republican friends. They say: Well, there are a lot of people who are making up to $40,000 a year and families will make more money. That is true. Raising the minimum wage will not just help people who are in poverty. It is true that it helps to get them out of poverty, but it also helps low-income families. Let's say there are two workers in the family and they are both low-income workers. They are making above the minimum wage, but they are low income. Perhaps you have a family with three kids and the breadwinner makes a decent income of $30,000 and the other makes minimum wage; that family too will get an increase.

Here is what happens: About 21 percent of workers in America will get a raise, and almost everyone has family income of less than $60,000 a year. Eighty-three percent of workers who will get a raise under my bill are in

American families making less than $60,000 a year; that is middle America. There are a few workers--17 percent--that economists tell us have family income over $60,000, that will also get a boost. But the majority are families making less than $60,000 a year. It is a middle- class bill.

Raising the minimum wage helps middle-class families, and it also does one other important thing--it helps kids. We don't think about this a lot. There are 14 million kids who will benefit from raising the minimum wage--14 million kids who are now in low-income families and struggling to get by.

I thought it was interesting that the American Pediatric Association--the folks you take your babies to to see the doctor and stuff--says raising the minimum wage will help our kids. It will help them to develop better, have better oral health, better immunization rates, and decrease the rate of obesity and its complications. The American Pediatric Association Task Force on Child Poverty supports raising the minimum wage. They get it. They see these kids in poverty and low income. They know what is happening to them. By raising the minimum wage, you will help kids have a better life and a better start in life.

I will talk a little bit about the basics of this bill. First of all, our bill, the Minimum Wage Fairness Act, would raise the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour--where it has been since 2009--to $10.10 an hour in three steps: 95 cents, 95 cents, and 95 cents over 3 years. We then index it to inflation in the future, so no longer will people who make the minimum wage fall below the poverty line. We keep it above the poverty line.

The third thing our bill does is raise the minimum wage for tipped workers. Can my colleagues believe this? When I tell people this, they say: No, you must be wrong, Harkin.

Tipped workers in America today have a minimum wage of $2.13 an hour. People say that can't be right. It is. It has been at $2.13 an hour since 1991. Imagine that--$2.13. Our bill would raise that from $2.13 an hour, over about a 6-year period of time, to 70 percent of the minimum wage, which is much closer to what it was historically, before 1991. So it raises it to 70 percent of the minimum wage over 6 years and then indexes that also in the future.

So, again, why did we settle on $10.10 an hour? Why not $9? I have heard that bandied about a lot. Well, here is why we raised it: because we know where the poverty line is. Back in 1968 the minimum wage was 120 percent of poverty. So we said: If we raise the minimum wage and we want to get it just above the poverty line and index it for the future so we wouldn't fall below, where would that be? Well, to get to 107 percent of the poverty line--just above the poverty line--it would be $10.10. So, again, in 1968 the minimum wage was 120 percent of the poverty line. Now it is at 81 percent of the poverty line, and our bill would raise it to 107 percent of the above line for a family of three. That is why we raise it to $10.10--because it hits above the poverty line--and then we index it in the future.

Let's look at the historic average on this. People say: Isn't that a big increase?

Well, historically, whenever we have raised the minimum wage, the percent increase has been about 41 percent. Our bill raises it 39 percent. So we wanted to keep it also within the boundaries of what we have done in the past. Going clear back to 1939, the average has been about 41 percent.

My colleagues might notice that in the 1990s there was a 27 percent and a 21 percent increase. That is because for some odd reason we raised it twice in the 1990s.

So we looked at the decades. Historically, we have raised the minimum wage about once every decade. If we look at it in the decades, we are again right about average: 150 percent, 33, 60, 81; in the 1980s it was only 16; then in the 1990s we had two steps, 54 percent. In 2007 when we passed it we raised it 41 percent. By the way, that was signed into law by a Republican President, not a Democratic President.

So we wanted to get it above the poverty line, index it there but keep it within the boundaries of sort of what we have done in the past, and that is what this bill does. So it is critical to get it above the poverty line.

The minimum wage has lost 32 percent of its purchasing power. So 1968--if we had kept the minimum wage at the same relative status from 1968 to now, the minimum wage would be $10.71 an hour. It is now $7.25. So in those years 32 percent of its purchasing power has been lost by minimum wage workers.

Again, I want to cover tipped wages a little bit because that is another important part of our bill.

People say: Well, tipped wages--people make tips and all that.

We keep hearing from some entities that if we raise the tipped wage, it is going to hurt the economy and it is going to hurt the restaurant business. That is just not so. Look at the poverty rates.

This chart shows restaurant servers, right here. If we take a State that has a $2.13 minimum wage, which is the Federal minimum wage for tipped workers--the poverty rate among tipped restaurant workers is 19.4 percent. Some States have already said they are going to have their tipped wages the same as the minimum wage. They have done that. Where we have a full State minimum wage for tipped workers the same as everybody else, the poverty rate just among restaurant workers falls to 13.6 percent.

If we look at all tipped workers--and a lot of people think that with tipped workers, we are only talking about people who wait on tables. That is not so. Forty percent of all tipped workers are not restaurant workers. Right now, we are talking about pizza delivery people, parking lot attendants, people who work in hair salons, including manicurists-- that is about 40 percent of tipped workers.

I ask unanimous consent for another 5 minutes.

I thank the Senator for allowing me a few more minutes.

The point being, if we look at all tipped workers in States with a $2.13 minimum wage, the poverty rate is 16.1 percent. Where a State has a minimum wage the same for tipped and not tipped, the poverty rate is 12.1 percent.

We also hear that job growth will be lost if we increase the minimum wage. Well, again, we have done some data-taking. If we look at tipped restaurant worker job growth, just from 2009 to 2012, in States that have a $2.13 minimum wage--tipped wage, the same as Federal--the job growth among restaurant workers has been 2 percent. In a State that has a minimum wage for tipped workers the same as everybody else, the job growth has been twice as much--4 percent. This is just among tipped restaurant workers.

Look over here at sales per capita in restaurants. This is sales per capita in the State. In those States with a $2.13 minimum wage, $1.42 per capita; in States with a full minimum wage, $1.68 per capita. That is why economists are saying raising the minimum wage and raising the tipped minimum wage is good for the economy. It increases aggregate demand.

People say: Why would this job growth be more? Why would the sales be more in a State with a higher minimum wage for restaurant workers?

Easy. If the restaurant workers themselves are making enough money to go out and eat or to do other things, they increase the wages for all of the other restaurant workers in the State. That is true. How many times have I heard from people who wait on tables, restaurant workers, say: I wish I could make some more money. I would like to go out to eat sometimes too.

But they don't make enough money to do that. But in the States where they have a full State minimum wage, both job growth and sales per capita are much greater.

Lastly, this is what is unconscionable. This is a restaurant worker in the District of Columbia. She got a paycheck, and her paycheck is for zero dollars and zero cents. Have my colleagues ever seen a paycheck for zero dollars? Why is that? Because she is a tipped worker making $2.77, and after they took out her FICA taxes and other taxes and things such as that, she got zero dollars. So therefore she had to rely upon only her tips.

But what are tips? Here is what a lot of people don't understand. How do we

classify a tipped worker? How do we do that? If a person makes more than $30 a month in tips, a person can be classified as a tipped worker. Think about that--if a person makes more than $30 a month. So if a person works 5 days a week for a month, that is $1.50 a day. If a person makes more than $1.50 a day in tips, a person can be classified as a tipped worker and be paid $2.13 an hour. We look at that and say that can't be right. But it is right. That is exactly what is happening.

Tipped workers are getting to be at the bottom of the barrel. Yet we rely upon them for so many things--people pushing wheelchairs in the airport, valet attendants, parking attendants. There are a lot of people who are classified as tipped workers if they make more than $30 a month in tips--$1.50 a day. Think about that--$1.50 a day. They get that, they get classified as a tipped worker, and they can be paid $2.13 an hour.

So, again, the time has come. The people of America understand this. Working families understand it. This is a civil rights bill. It is a women's issue bill. I say it is a civil rights bill because if we look at the people who are going to get benefits--13 million people--28 percent of African-American workers, 32 percent of Hispanic workers, 19 percent of Asian and other workers will get a raise. This is a civil rights bill. It is a women's issue bill because 55 percent of the people in America making low wages who will get a raise are women. It is a children's issue. Kids who aren't getting adequate health care and nutrition and childcare are the kids of people making the minimum wage or tipped wages, even less. So it is a civil rights issue, it is a women's issue, it is a kids issue, and it is an economic issue for America.

It is time to give America a raise and raise the minimum wage.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Diana Hodges and Benjamin Rowland, interns from the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of today's session.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet on April 1, 2014, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Access to Justice: Ensuring Equal Pay with the Paycheck Fairness Act.''

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Sarah Cupp of the committee staff on (202) 224-5363.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet on March 25, 2014, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Teacher Preparation: Ensuring a Quality Teacher in Every Classroom.''

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Aissa Canchola of the committee staff on (202) 224-2009.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet on March 27, 2014, at 10 a.m. in room SD-430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Strengthening the Federal Student Loan Program for Borrowers.''

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Aissa Canchola of the committee staff on (202) 224-2009.

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

Mr. President, a lot of work has gone into this bill. The person who led that whole work for a 2-year period of time was Senator Mikulski. I happen to be chair of the committee. But it was Senator Mikulski and Senator Burr, working together, who really have brought this to fruition. It is a good bill.

Senator Alexander always says that our committee probably has the biggest divergence ideologically of any committee in the Senate. Yet we have reported out, I think, 19 bills out of our committee, 10 of which have been signed into law during this Congress. We are able to do that because people work together. We work things out.

That is what has happened with this bill. There are a lot of crosscurrents on this bill. There are a lot of items that Senator Mikulski would like to have had in the bill, that I would have liked to have had in the bill, and I am sure I can say the same thing for the Republican side.

But over a 2-year period of time--I know it has been at least that-- Senator Mikulski has worked on this. We made our agreements, and we worked it out to the point where the bill passed our committee unanimously. We have, as I said, a wide divergence of ideological views on our committee. So, here is a bill that passed unanimously. We will have an open process here of debate, deliberation, and amending.

I think at this time we have a pretty defined universe of the amendments, unless something else pops up that I did not know about.

We are working on those. The staffs are working on those now with the Senators. With any legislation that comes through, let's face it, as Senators we probably would like to change something here or there. I understand that. I have been in the Senate a long time, and I know I have wanted to add an amendment to something to change it, to do something different, maybe, that I cared about.

But in the interests of the broader perspective of the legislation at hand, I didn't offer it. I would wait until some other point in time to offer it or perhaps to offer a different pathway. That is what I am asking Senators on both sides of the aisle to think about.

We have a great bill. It is sorely needed. It updates a law that hasn't been changed. I know Senator Mikulski has told us many times, and it bears repeating. We have not addressed this since 1996, and a lot has changed since 1996 in terms of childcare.

This bill updates, modernizes, and does some things that will move us ahead and better this country in terms of the child care and development block grant program.

I know that different people have different ideas, saying: Well, I would like to change this or modify that. I get it; I understand that.

But if there is a problem in terms of bringing an amendment up that might jeopardize the bill, I ask Senators to consider whether their interests, whatever it might be, and I am not saying it is not legitimate, but if it upsets the

balance we have worked out in this committee with this broad, ideological spectrum, I ask them to reconsider whether they would want to jeopardize this bill, which we are so close to passing. I think we could actually pass this bill this afternoon.

I ask Senators, if they have those kinds of amendments, to reconsider maybe the broader implications of this legislation and whether they would want to jeopardize it for their legitimate interests, as I said. I don't deny any Senator the right to offer an amendment and to push an interest that he or she might have. Some of them I might agree with. But if it really jeopardizes the bill, then I would have to say, no, I wouldn't support it because of the broader interests of getting the bill passed.

Senator Mikulski and her staff, Senator Alexander, Senator Burr, and my staff, we are working together on this. I still hope we can bring this bill to fruition sometime early this afternoon.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

First of all, I just want to say--and I mentioned it on the floor the other day--that I spent this weekend in Iowa at two early learning centers, and what became clear to me was the number of different conduits of funding and the different programs, qualifications, requirements, and paperwork.

I said at the time: I am confused.

The man at the center said: If you think you are confused, how do you think we feel about it?

That is why I was very supportive of the amendment offered by Senator Enzi. The Enzi amendment was a mandate on HHS, I believe, to take a look at all of these things and have a report back within a certain amount of time--I think it was 1 year--on how we can better coordinate these.

I agree with the Senator. There are way too many conduits into childcare, and it is horribly confusing, and there are all these different requirements that overlap, and this just causes confusion.

I wanted to ask the Senator if he had looked at the Enzi amendment, which gives us some time, and I can assure the Senator that our committee--and I am sure I can speak for Senator Burr on this on the Republican side--will be riding herd on this because I think we all agree with the Senator from Oklahoma that it has to be fixed.

Madam President, if I could have the attention of Senator Alexander and Senator Burr. I am about to propose a unanimous consent request.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at 12:15 p.m. today, the Senate proceed to votes in relation to the following amendments in the order listed: Coburn No. 2830, as modified; Portman No. 2827; Tester No. 2834; Thune No. 2838; Warren No. 2842; Bennet No. 2839, as modified; further, that no second-degree amendments be in order to any of these amendments prior to the votes.

For the information of all Senators, it is our understanding we will need one roll call vote in this sequence and the remaining amendments can be disposed of by voice vote.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the pending amendments be set aside and the following amendments be made pending: Portman No. 2827; Tester No. 2834; Thune No. 2838; Warren No. 2842; and Bennet No. 2839, as modified.

I say to my friend I am hopeful we will have final passage today. We are working through it. We are down to just a couple of amendments. I haven't seen any others pop up right now. So I am hopeful we will have this series of votes, people will go to lunch, we will come back, and hopefully we will dispose of maybe a couple more amendments and then we will have final passage.

If we don't have any kind of extended debate on the floor, I would say probably at least by 3, I would hope we would be finished. If we work out agreement on a couple amendments, we might be done before that.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that following disposition of the Bennet amendment, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations, en bloc: Calendar Nos. 634, 625, and 550; that the Senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on the nominations in the order listed; the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order; that any related statements be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then resume legislative session; further, that there be 2 minutes for debate, equally divided in the usual form prior to each vote, and that the votes be 10 minutes in length.

I am told we expect the amendments we are bringing up to be voice-voted this afternoon.

Vote on Amendment No. 2830

Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Vote on Amendment No. 2827

Madam President, I move to reconsider and then move to lay those motions on the table, for all the voice votes we just considered.

The motions to lay on the table were agreed to.

We yield back our remaining time.