WASHINGTON (AP) - Flexing their muscle, House Democrats powered toward passage Wednesday of a boost in the federal minimum wage that would increase paychecks for hundreds of thousands of janitors, fast food clerks and other workers at the bottom of the income scale. As their second bill since taking control of Congress, the Democratic- written legislation would raise the federal wage floor from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour over 26 months. It's one of their top priorities.
"For the first time in 10 years, this Congress is going to break its silence on the minimum wage," Democratic Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina vowed as debate opened on the House floor.
Organized labor and other supporters pitched the bill as coming to the aid of the working poor. Business groups and other opponents said it could lead to higher prices for goods and services, force small companies to pink-slip existing workers or hire fewer new ones, and crimp profits.
The bill would raise the wage floor in three steps. It would go to $5.85 an hour 60 days after signed into law by the president, to $6.55 an hour a year later, and to $7.25 an hour a year after that.
"Minimum wage workers desperately need a raise," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., author of the legislation. "If we truly value work, then we have to ensure that it is fairly rewarded," he said.
President Bush said he supports a wage boost paired with "targeted tax and regulatory relief" to help businesses—which would have to pay for the higher labor costs—stay competitive. As currently written, the House bill doesn't include any such tax or regulatory breaks.
"We are going to pass this bill clean," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.
House Democrats are denying Republicans any chance to amend the minimum wage bill. "We are shut out," complained Howard McKeon, R- Calif.
The Senate is expected to move quickly—perhaps in the next few weeks—on a similar bill. Business groups and some Republican lawmakers, however, hope they will be able to get some business-friendly provisions into the Senate package.
The last time the federal minimum wage rose was in 1997. That's the longest stretch without an increase since the minimum wage was established in 1938. Inflation has eroded the minimum wage's buying power to the lowest level in about 50 years.
The Labor Department says 479,000 workers paid by the hour earned exactly $5.15 in 2005, the most recent estimate available.
The federal minimum wage is like a national wage floor, though some people can be paid less under certain circumstances. States can set minimum wages above the federal level; more than two dozen states plus the District of Columbia do.
People who are paid the minimum wage tend to be young—under age 25—never married, more likely to be a woman, a minority and work part time, according to a recent analysis of 2005 data by the Labor Department.
If the federal wage does rise in 26 months to $7.25 an hour, about 5.6 million people—4 percent of the work force—who make less than this would be directly affected, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal leaning group. The group estimates that another 7.4 million workers would benefit indirectly as raising the floor would ripple through the work force.
That means higher payroll costs for employers.
"It is an economic reality that if the federal minimum wage increases by 41 percent, it will put upward pressure on all labor costs for small businesses, which continue to be the engine of economic growth in the United States," the National Retail Federation complained in a letter Tuesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.
The retail group expressed concern about the "lack of balance" in the House bill because it doesn't include other provisions to help ease the economic impact on companies.
Many businesses want the pot sweetened, perhaps by faster depreciation or other tax breaks or letting small businesses band together to buy health insurance for their workers.
But AFL-CIO President John Sweeney shot back saying: "An increase in pay for America's lowest-paid workers should not have to depend on additional payoffs to business."
Both the House and Senate minimum wage bills also would extend the minimum wage—on a separate time table—to employers on the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory.
Recent attempts to boost the federal minimum wage had failed when Republicans had control of Congress. But prospects changed after the Nov. 7 midterm elections put Democrats in charge in both the House and Senate.
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House minimum wage bill HR 2
Senate minimum wage bill S 2
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