George Miller: “later in this session we will be discussing efforts at reforming the welfare system in this country, and it is clearly…”

“later in this session we will be discussing efforts at reforming the welfare system in this country, and it is clearly the goal of both the Republicans and the Democrats to make sure that people move from welfare into the American economic system and that those individuals move into that economic system in the hopes of achieving economic self-sufficiency. It is clearly what the President has announced as he has discussed welfare reform and as he has discussed the minimum wage. The minimum wage becomes key to that effort of moving people from welfare, from public assistance, from dependency, to economic self-sufficiency. We must make it clear that in this country those individuals that choose to go to work, those individuals that later we will seek to require to go to work, that they are making a logical economic choice for them and for their families. The key to doing that is making sure that the minimum wage will boost people above the poverty level in this country; that when they make a decision to get up every morning and go to work and go to work all day long, that in fact when they come home to their families and their children, they will know they succeeded in lifting their family out of poverty. If we do not do that it is very difficult to rationalize to those individuals why in fact they should go to work.”