Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007

FAIR MINIMUM WAGE ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - January 25, 2007)

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate concerning poverty)

At the appropriate place insert the following:

SEC. __. SENSE OF THE SENATE CONCERNING POVERTY.

(a) Findings.--The Senate finds that--

(1) the United States has the highest rate of poverty and the highest rate of childhood poverty among 17 major countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development including Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland;

(2) 36,950,000 Americans are living in poverty, an increase of 5,400,000 since 2000;

(3) 12,896,000 children in the United States under the age of 18 lived in poverty in 2005, and the number of children living in extreme poverty rose by 87,000 from 2004 through 2005;

(4) in 2005, an estimated 33 percent of the homeless population were children and an estimated 1,350,000 children will experience homelessness in a year;

(5) the number of uninsured Americans rose to 46,577,000 in 2005, 1,272,000 more than in the previous year, and the number of Americans without health insurance has risen for 4 consecutive years;

(6) the Department of Agriculture has found that, in 2005, 35,100,000 people lived in households experiencing food insecurity, meaning that they did not have adequate access to enough food to meet basic dietary needs to all times due to a lack of financial resources;

(7) households with children experience food insecurity at more than double the rate for households without children;

(8) The United States has the largest gap between the rich and the poor of any major industrialized country;

(9) the wealthiest 400 Americans saw their combined net worth increase by $120,000,000,000 from 2004 to 2005;

(10) the richest 400 Americans have a combined net worth of $1,250,000,000,000 equaling the annual income of over 45 percent of the entire world's population or 2,500,000,000 people;

(11) of the world's 793 billionaires, over 400 are Americans;

(12) in 1989, we only had 66 billionaires in this country; and

(13) on January 20, 2001, President Bush stated ``In the quiet of American conscience, we know that deep, persistent poverty is unworthy of our nation's promise. Where there is suffering, there is duty. Americans in need are not strangers, they are citizens, not problems, but priorities. And all of us are diminished when any are hopeless. And I can pledge our nation to a goal: When we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side.'.

(b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate that--

(1) the United States has a moral obligation to improve the lives of the 36,950,000 Americans living in poverty and the 15,928,000 of those who live in extreme poverty;

(2) the United States has a moral obligation to reduce the enormous gap between the rich and the poor; and

(3) the President should immediately present to Congress a comprehensive plan to eradicate child poverty and reduce the gap between the rich and the poor by 2017.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me begin by congratulating Senator Kennedy for his strong leadership on the need to raise the minimum wage--a minimum wage that has not been raised for 10 years.

Let me also congratulate my colleague from Ohio, the current Presiding Officer, for his fine remarks, which I certainly concur with.

The United States of America is the richest country in the history of the world. Unfortunately, despite our great wealth, nearly 13 percent of our citizens are living in poverty, and we have today the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country in the industrialized world. In my opinion, we have a moral responsibility to end childhood poverty in America.

Therefore, the amendment I am offering today simply expresses the sense of the Senate that, No. 1, we have a moral obligation to improve the lives of nearly 37 million Americans living in poverty, including nearly 13 million children; No. 2, we have to address the reality that in the United States today we have, by far, the most unfair distribution of wealth and income of any major industrialized country, and that we have a moral obligation to reduce that growing gap between the rich and the poor; No. 3, and most important, this amendment calls upon the President to submit a plan to Congress which eradicates childhood poverty over the next decade and reduces the growing gap between the rich and the poor.

As a nation, we are often very proud of our accomplishments. How often do we hear people say, ``U.S.A., No. 1'? I share that sentiment. Certainly, in so many areas our country is leading and has led the rest of the world, and we are all very proud of that.

Unfortunately, in terms of childhood poverty, within the industrialized world, we are also No. 1. We are No. 1 in having the highest rate of childhood poverty among any major country in the world, and that is not a No. 1 of which we should be proud.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the childhood poverty rate in the United States today is nearly 18 percent. According to data from the Luxembourg Income Study Group, the childhood poverty rate in the United States is even higher, almost 22 percent.

Well, let's take a look at what childhood poverty rates are in other major countries, in many of the countries that we compete against economically. In Germany, the childhood poverty rate is 9 percent. In France, it is 7.9 percent. In Austria, it is 6.7 percent. In Sweden, it is 4.2 percent. In Norway, it is 3.4 percent. In Finland, the childhood poverty rate is only 2.8 percent--2.8 percent in Finland, over 18 percent in the United States of America. There is something wrong with that equation.

Have other countries succeeded when they put their minds to reducing childhood poverty rates? The answer is yes.

In 1999, the British Government--our good friends in the United Kingdom--made a commitment to address childhood poverty. Six years later, child poverty in the United Kingdom had been cut by 20 percent. Similar progress, as I understand it, has been made in Ireland.

Unfortunately, at the same time that Britain was taking important steps to reduce childhood poverty, in the United States childhood poverty increased by about 12 percent. The situation is bad, and we are moving in the wrong direction.

When we hear our fellow Senators come to the floor and say the United States is the greatest country on Earth, I share that sentiment. But I do not share the sentiment that the greatest country on Earth should have, by far, the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, and that rate is growing higher and higher. We have to address that issue. We cannot sweep it under the carpet.

While we continue to have the highest rate of childhood poverty, and while over 5 million more Americans have slipped into poverty since George W. Bush has been President, there is another issue that this Senate has to address, and that is the growing oligarchic nature of our society. It is not talked about too much, but I think we should place it on the table.

Today, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, and the CEOs of our largest corporations now earn over 800 times what a minimum wage worker earns. Today in America the wealthiest 13,000 families who constitute one one-hundreeth of 1 percent of the population receive almost as much income as the bottom 20 million American families in the United States; one one-hundreth of 1 percent receive almost as much income as the bottom 20 million American families. That, in my view, is not what America is supposed to be.

Mr. BYRD. Here here.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, working with the President of the United States, working in a bipartisan manner, we have to come up with ideas, place them on the table, and end the disgrace of having the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. Other countries are making progress; we can do the same.

Mr. BYRD. Yes, Mr. President.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, at the same time, we have to reverse this trend by which fewer and fewer people own more and more wealth, while more and more people have less; while poverty increases and while the middle class shrinks.

The true greatness of a country does not lie in the number of millionaires and billionaires that it has; rather, a great nation is one in which justice, equality, and dignity prevail.

I close with a quote that none other than President George W. Bush made on January 20, 2001. I quote from President Bush:

In the quiet of American conscience, we know that deep, persistent poverty is unworthy of our Nation's promise. Where there is suffering, there is duty. Americans in need are not strangers, they are citizens, not problems, but priorities. And all of us are diminished when any are hopeless. And I can pledge our Nation to a goal: When we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side.

George W. Bush.

The President was right to make that pledge, but since he made that statement, we all know that over 5 million more Americans have slipped into poverty, including over 1 million children.

Let us turn that pledge to reality. We can begin to do that by raising the minimum wage, and we can begin to do that by coming up with a plan, with a program, with legislation which eliminates childhood poverty in America and lowers the gap between the rich and the poor.

I thank the Chair.

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