George Miller: “hard working Americans deserve a raise. They deserve an increase in the minimum wage. Many of our colleagues on the…”

“hard working Americans deserve a raise. They deserve an increase in the minimum wage. Many of our colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle do not want to provide that increase in the minimum wage because they say that, in fact, people who earn the minimum wage earn much more than that because they get food stamps, they get AFDC payments, they get medical benefits. The question I have to ask is, Why should the taxpayers have to subsidize these people's jobs? Why should the marketplace not provide a livable wage so that these people can support their families, can support their children without the taxpayers subsidizing this through the welfare system? When we increase the minimum wage we save a substantial amount of money for those individuals because we no longer have to subsidize their jobs as much as we did before we increased the minimum wage. We ought to make sure that, in fact, we are not asking the taxpayers to subsidize jobs where employers simply choose not to pay the minimum wage. It is not that they cannot afford to, they just know that they do not have to pay it because the welfare system will subsidize that job. That ought not to be allowed. That ought not to be done anymore. We ought to in fact require those people to pay people for the hard work that they engage in.”