Online NewsHour: The Minimum Wage Debate -- November 9, 1999



	THE MINIMUM WAGE DEBATE

November 9, 1999

The Senate voted 54-44 Tuesday to approve a Republican plan to raise the minimum wage by $1 over three years and cut business taxes by $18.4 billion over five years.

-- Posted Tuesday, 6pm E.S.T.

Oct. 28, 1999:
Kwame Holman reports on the congressional budget battles.

April 19, 1996:
A discussion on the minimum wage increase to $5.15/hr.

Online Forum:
An expert responds to viewer questions about the minimum wage increase.
(May '96)

Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Congress.

The Joint Economic Committee's research on the minimum wage. (Feb. '95)

The U.S. Senate

The U.S. House of Representatives

The White House

The plan would raise the $5.15 minimum wage and fund the tax cuts for businesses with projected budget surpluses.

Should the Republican plan become law, the minimum wage would rise 35 cents an hour on March 1, 2000, another 35 cents on March 1, 2001 and 30 cents on March 1, 2002.

The decision came immediately after a vote defeating a Democratic measure providing a speedier wage raise and more modest cuts. That plan would have increased the minimum wage 50 cents a year over two years and lowered business taxes by $9.6 billion without touching the surplus.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said Monday an acceptable plan would counter a raise in the minimum wage with significant business tax relief.

"My main focus is to make sure that we have some tax breaks, some tax incentives for small businessmen and -women, and the self-employed, that will have to bear the brunt of the cost of the increased minimum wage," he said.
Some Senate Democrats say the Republican bill raises the minimum wage too slowly and digs too deep into federal pockets for its tax cuts.

"The Republican plan has almost nothing to do with small-business tax relief," Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) said. "It overwhelmingly benefits wealthy individuals. Our tax cuts would cost $28 billion over 10 years. Theirs would cost $75 billion over 10 years."

Many project the wage increase will not get to President Clinton before next year, and that even then prospects for the Republican plan look bleak.

The president, accusing Republicans of using the minimum wage plan to push their tax cut agenda, has threatened to veto the measure.

"The Senate Republican leadership made a serious mistake by insisting on using a minimum wage increase as a cynical tool to advance special interest tax breaks that aren't paid for and to do little to help working families," Clinton said in a statement.

"I cannot let this bill become law in its current form," he added. "Congress could pass clean legislation that boosts the minimum wage by one dollar over the next two years and simply restores the value of the minimum wage to what it was in 1982."

Over 11.8 million U.S. workers earn the minimum wage, half of whom are younger workers and those with part-time jobs.