Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, it has taken us 4 months, but we are finally on the verge of passing a long-overdue emergency extension of unemployment benefits. So I come to the floor this afternoon to urge my colleagues to continue supporting America's working families by raising the minimum wage.

Over the past 50 years the value of the minimum wage has sharply declined. In 1968 the minimum wage was high enough to keep a working parent with a family of three out of poverty. In 1980 the minimum wage was at least high enough to keep a working parent with a family of two out of poverty. Today the minimum wage isn't even high enough to keep a fully employed mother and a baby out of poverty. This is fundamentally wrong. Anyone who works full time should not live in poverty.

For nearly half a century, as we came out of the Great Depression, we lived by the basic principle that we all do better when we work together and build opportunities for everyone. For nearly half a century, as our country got richer our workers got richer, and as our workers got richer our country got richer. As the pie got bigger, we all got a little bit more. That is how it was, and that is how we built America's great middle class.

But that is not how it works now for low-income workers. Dr. Arin Dube of the University of Massachusetts has explained that if the minimum wage had kept up with increases in productivity, it would be $22 an hour today. But it didn't keep up. So today, while corporate profits soar, millions of hard-working moms and dads are left behind, working full time and still living in poverty.

Democrats aren't proposing to increase the minimum wage to $22 an hour. Our proposal is much more modest--a raise to $10.10 an hour. That is modest by comparison, but for at least 14 million children who depend on a parent whose wages would go up as a result of this legislation, this increase will make their lives a whole lot more secure.

This bill is about the lives of minimum-wage workers, but it is also about every taxpayer in America and about the corporate welfare taxpayers are forced to dole out when these companies pay poverty-level wages.

More than half of low-wage working families participate in government assistance programs for food, for health care, and for other expenses. A study by researchers at UC Berkeley and the University of Illinois show that we spend about $240 billion a year providing benefits to working families through food stamps, Medicaid, and other antipoverty programs.

When big companies pay poverty-level wages and then count on the government to cover basic expenses for their employees, they get a boost from every American taxpayer who helps pick up the ticket for food stamps and Medicaid. Taxpayer dollars are being used to boost the profits of private companies that don't want to pay their employees enough to keep them out of poverty. That is corporate welfare, plain and simple.

I understand why some businesses might like to keep it that way, but American taxpayers have had enough of this corporate welfare. American workers have had enough of this corporate welfare. America has had enough of this corporate welfare.

This is an uphill fight. Those big corporations that pay poverty-level wages want to keep wages the way they are. And why not? It is more money for corporate dividends and CEO bonuses. So those companies hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers who lean on Washington politicians to keep things exactly the way they are. Minimum-wage workers don't have an army of lobbyists and lawyers, and American taxpayers don't either. But Congress doesn't work for those big companies. We work for the workers and the taxpayers and the voters who sent us here.

It is time to call out this corporate welfare for what it is, and it is time to fight back. It has been 7 years since Congress last increased the minimum wage. Senator Ted Kennedy led that fight, and I am proud to carry that fight forward today. It is time to honor work again, time to honor people who get up every day and bust their tails to try to build a life for themselves and their children. It is time to increase the minimum wage.

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