Richard Gephardt: “over these past 2 years, President Clinton and the Democratic Party have been fighting for a single fundamental goal: To…”

“over these past 2 years, President Clinton and the Democratic Party have been fighting for a single fundamental goal: To raise the standard of living of America's working families. Everything else is secondary to that goal. And if you are one of the millions of Americans who try to support a family on the minimum wage, your real wages have plummeted by almost a third since 1979. How can you raise a family on $8,500 a year? That is why it is time to raise the minimum wage by 90 cents to lift up those who have been falling behind, to make work pay more than welfare, because too often that is just not the case today. We know that a minimum wage increase will not cost us jobs. Research shows that it creates jobs. And to the Speaker, who says this will widen the gap between American wages and those in Mexico and the Third World, I say: Do we want to raise the world's wages up or just drag ourselves down? Republican Leader Armey not only opposes the increase, he wants to demolish the minimum wage altogether. To the Republicans lower wages and fewer benefits are just money in the bank for American business. Never mind that people are suffering while profits soar. This should not be a partisan issue. This is about our standard of living.…”