June 27, 2006
Senator Clinton Reiterates Call to Tie Increasing the Minimum Wage to Congressional Pay Increases
Washington, DC – Senator Clinton today underscored the urgent need to increase the minimum wage and reiterated her call to tie an increase to Congressional pay raises. Senator Clinton highlighted her proposal today on a conference call with Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union. Senator Clinton's bill, the “Standing with Minimum Wage Earners Act”, was inspired by an idea submitted to SinceSlicedBread.com, the Service Employees International Union’s contest that asked Americans for bold ideas that would make life better for working families. Senator Clinton also noted that today she joined the Senate Democratic Leadership in announcing that Democrats will block a Congressional pay raise until Congress increases the minimum wage and urged the Republican leadership to join this effort.
“It is unacceptable that Americans working full time are living in poverty. Every day the minimum wage is not increased, it continues to lose value and working families fall further behind. It is past time to stand up for working families and raise the minimum wage,” said Senator Clinton. “I also believe we should tie the minimum wage to Congressional pay raises. If we in Congress can give ourselves a raise, surely we can raise the pay of working families struggling to make ends meet.”
In 1989, Congress passed legislation that provided for an automatic salary increase for its Members every year tied to an inflation-adjusted cost of living allowance (COLA). Congress can decline to accept the pay raise and has done so five times since the automatic increase was put into effect. Pursuant to this new law, Congress in 1991 also gave itself a 25 percent salary increase to make up for past years when its salary remained unchanged.
In 1991, the minimum wage was $3.80 per hour. It is currently $5.15 per hour and was last increased in 1997. If the minimum wage had increased at the same rate as Congressional salaries, it would now be $6.51 per hour. If the minimum wage had also received a 25 percent bump in 1991, it would now be $7.48 per hour.
A single mother with two children who works 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year earns just $10,700 per year – almost $6,000 below the federal poverty line for a family of three. The minimum wage in New York is currently $6.75 per hour and will increase to $7.15 per hour in January 2007. If the federal minimum wage ever exceeds New York’s wage, New York law stipulates that the federal law would prevail.
Senator Clinton is a strong advocate of increasing the minimum wage. Senator Clinton is an original cosponsor of legislation introduced by Senator Kennedy that would increase the federal minimum wage to $7.25 per hour over a two-year period.
http://www.senate.gov/~clinton/news/statements/record.cfm?id=257945Here's the bill she introduced in May 2006
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.2725: