Mr. President, I find it almost hard to believe that we are here on the floor of the United States Senate arguing over the necessity for an increase in the minimum wage. I am strongly supportive of Senator Kennedy’s amendment, proud to cosponsor it, and urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote in favor of it and to oppose the second-degree amendment. Now, this amendment does not go as far as I or Senator Kennedy and others would have preferred. It raises the minimum wage to $6.25 an hour, far short of the $7.25 an hour that Senator Kennedy and I and 48 other Senators proposed in March, but we could never get a vote on that. Now, this amendment, however, should have even greater support than the 50 cosponsors we had last March. It should pass unanimously out of this body. Fifty senators just last March supported an increase to $7.25 and now we have cut the increase with a hope that we can get, number one, the vote we are hoping to get on this appropriations bill; and, number two, an overwhelmingly bipartisan passage.

Since March, we have seen even more evidence as to why this is critical. At a time when working families are struggling to make ends meet, it's critically important that we do something. Senator Kennedy has called this amendment a down payment on what is truly needed.

Today the Federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour, an amount that has not been increased since 1997. Now, unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the cost of living. Over the past three months, according to the federal Department of Labor, inflation has increased more rapidly in the New York metro area than any time since early in 1990. We also know that the poverty rate is going back up and that the fact is there has not been one net new private-sector job created in the last 4 1/2 years. This chart, this should be a rebuke to all of us. It shows that we have increased the number of people living in poverty. In 2000, we had 31.6 million, which is far too many. And now we're at 37 million, up 5.4 million. Why? Because we're not creating jobs and many of the jobs that are in the economy are no longer paying wages that families can live on and can work their way out of poverty. So, Mr. President, we know that everything else has gone up. Across America, people are spending 74% more gas than they did at the beginning of 2001. Heating oil prices are expected to rise by more than 50% this winter. Such rapid price increases will force consumers, especially poor working people, to cut spending on clothing, health care, and food just so they can get to work and keep warm this winter. These rising costs and falling wages are illustrated in this chart where heating oil is going up dramatically and the buying power of the minimum wage is going down. And of course we are in the post-Katrina phase, which lest we forget, demonstrated in stark terms how so many Americans live every day on the brink of economic disaster. Any setback becomes a major obstacle to being able to pay for gas, pay for food, pay for health care and prescription drugs, pay for tuition, pay for all of the necessities of life. Mr. President, I think that it's hard to stand here on the floor with this amendment before us and not wonder, when will the majority stop giving privileges to the already privileged?

At what point is it too much? Never has a political party given so much to so few who needed it so little. And it never ends. You know, we're more than happy to continue to provide tax breaks for the wealthiest among us while we cut the social safety net, while we refuse to raise the minimum wage. Well, shame on us. You know, I think at some point there has to be a recognition that we are tilting the scales dramatically against average Americans. Middle-class wages are stagnant. Health care costs are going up and the number of the uninsured is going up because people who work hard for a living are no longer offered insurance or cannot afford to pay what it costs. Pension and retirement security is at risk. There's something really wrong with this picture.

With all due respect to those who have a different economic philosophy, rich people did not make America great. I'm all for rich people. Ever since my husband got out of office and got into the private sector, I think it's great. I never knew how much the President really liked us. He can't give us enough tax cuts. I have nothing against rich people. That's part of the American dream. But with all due respect, it is not rich people who made America great. It is the vast American middle class. It is the upward mobility of people who thought they could do better than their parents.

For more than 100 years we have worked hard to make sure the deck was not stacked against the average American. Teddy Roosevelt understood that if we didn't have a fair playing field, if people were permitted to monopolize capital and labor, we would have rich people, but the vast majority would never get ahead. He began to advocate for -- and accomplish - a fair economic system. As we moved through the 20th century, we saw adjustments made. We saw Franklin Roosevelt who understood that sometimes the difficulties of life strike any of us and that a fair and just society would try to provide a little help so that people overwhelmed by circumstances often beyond their control could keep going and raise their children and plan for the future. And we put in a lot of government programs to make sure that we had a balance of power, a balance of power between capital and labor, between management and employees. And it worked really, really well. The history of the economic prosperity of the American middle class in the 20th century is the greatest example of what can happen if a democracy where people’s energies are freed so that they can compete between themselves, but within a framework of rules. I'm proud of the progress we made in the 20th century and I’m particularly proud that in the last eight years of the 20th century 22 million people were lifted out of poverty. Where we raised the minimum wage. Where we said to people, you have to work, but if you work we'll make sure you have a fair chance, you and your children. We’ve reversed that progress and it appears as though people are just sleep walking through this chamber and the one on the other side of the Capitol. Don't we see what is happening before our eyes? We are undermining the American dream. We are making it nearly impossible for people to believe that tomorrow will be better than today and yesterday was.

These numbers sort of speak for themselves. Look at this, the minimum wage no longer even lifts a family out of poverty. You can go to work 40 hours a week. You can clean the rooms and the toilets in a motel. You can serve the food in a restaurant. You can work in a small factory. You can make that minimum wage and you cannot even get your family out of poverty. What kind of message does that send? The whole idea of America is if you work hard and you play by the rules, you will be successful. You will have a chance to do better.

Look at that chart. It speaks for itself: we've been on a steady slow decline. Even when we were able to get a bipartisan agreement to raise it in 1997, we still didn't get above the poverty line. What message are we sending to millions of hard-working Americans? I represent a lot of them working hard for a living. You see them on bicycles in Manhattan delivering food. You see them doing all the hard work of janitorial services at night. In upstate New York, I see them as they get up every day and go to work and believe that they are doing what they should do. What message are we sending them? Too bad, keep working. Don't expect anything for us; we're too busy giving tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Well, that's a choice that is going to be made by this chamber. As far as I can tell it's going to be a choice to vote against the minimum wage and to vote instead for the second-degree amendment which is designed not only to defeat Senator Kennedy’s amendment, but to do even more harm to the paychecks of working Americans. I mean, this is what I don't understand. The second degree amendment would deny more than ten million workers the money wage, overtime and equal pay rights by ending individual fair labor standards coverage and raising the threshold for which a business would be held accountable to $1 million from $500,000.

In short, and let's make no mistake about this, the second-degree amendment would be the end of the 40-hour workweek. So, we can go right back to the end of the 19th century because that's where we're heading. You know, there are those who, bless their hearts, believe that America was better off at the end of the 19th century, when you were told what to do and you had to do it and you didn't have much of a choice about it. I just don't agree with that. I'm proud of the progress we made in the 20th century, but I’m just absolutely convinced that some people are trying to head us right back there. Because if it's the end of the 40-hour workweek and the end of the American weekend because there's no rules on overtime that means a pay cut of $3,000 a year for the median-income earner and an $800 pay cut for those earning minimum wage.

Employees are already free to offer more flexible schedules under current law, but today if they come in and they tell an employee, “Guess what? I need you this weekend. You are going to have to work,” they have to offer overtime when the work is more than 40 hours a week. The second-degree amendment would undermine that basic protection. So, instead of making it easier for families to spend time together, we basically are going to tell workers that they have to do whatever they are told at the risk of losing their job without any overtime pay or any other compensation.

The second-degree amendment would also prohibit states from providing stronger wage protections than the federal standard for employees like waiters and waitresses who rely on tips. The amendment removes agency direction and creates a safe haven for violators of consumer protections by prohibiting agencies from assessing fines for most first-time reporting violations and preempts states’ abilities to enforce these laws. In many states, we happen to think some of those rules need to be enforced. Just like what James Madison said in the Federalist, “If men were angels, there would be no need for a government.” But we aren't and we never will be, not on this earth.

The job of government is to level the playing field, help right that balance because otherwise people are powerless to defend themselves especially when they have to get up every day and go to work to keep body and soul together and to put food on the table and particularly if they are a single parent trying to make due on minimum wage. So, it's disheartening. We could have had an up-or-down vote on the minimum wage. If you want to vote against it, vote against it, but to introduce a second-degree amendment loaded with poison pills against workers and fairness, that speaks louder than anything I could say in this chamber.

I think there's going to be a day of reckoning. You can't continue to tilt the scales against the vast majority of the Americans and not be held accountable in the political process. The mask has been ripped off of compassionate conservatism and people see it for what it is: partisan politics to favor the privileged. If that's what we're fighting against in this chamber, then I guess, bring it on because most are on the same side. They want to make sure the deck is not stacked against them, that they've got a fair chance to compete and that their labor gets a fair return.

So, Mr. President, I hope that our colleagues will rally in support of Senator Kennedy’s amendment and vote against the second-degree amendment. We should pass an increase in the minimum wage and it should not come at the cost of denying basic rights to millions of Americans and turning the clock back to the 19th century, which is what it would do. Thank you.