Jeff Bingaman: “I commend my colleague from Kentucky for that eloquent statement about the problem, and also the Senator from North…”

“I commend my colleague from Kentucky for that eloquent statement about the problem, and also the Senator from North Dakota for his eloquent statement about the extent of the problem and our efforts to find at least some partial solutions to the problem. As both of my colleagues have said this morning, there are millions of American working families that are scrambling to pay the bills each month. They are working longer hours. They are taking home less money in real spendable money. Yet what they are having to pay for education and for health care is going up, and many of these same families are afraid of being laid off from their jobs. So we do have a problem and the problem is twofold. The problem is that our economy has grown too slowly in the last couple of decades. And, second, the people who are doing the work in our economy, whether they are working for large companies or small companies or nonprofit organizations--the people who are really doing the work in our economy are getting a smaller part of the benefit from the work that they do and from the profit that is being realized. Last spring I went to our Democratic leader, Senator Daschle, and urged that he set up a working group of Senators to explore options for dealing with this problem of stagnant wages. This is not, I should say, a recent problem. This is a problem that has been with us, now, since 1973. I think all economists would agree that it is a new era in our Nation's economy.”