Washington, DC (January 10, 2007) – Congressman Rubén Hinojosa (TX-15) today addressed the U.S. House of Representatives on H.R. 2, the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery:
 
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2.  I am proud that the 110th Congress has made giving America’s lowest paid workers a raise one of its first legislative actions.  It is long overdue.

Many families work hard, but struggle with low wages.  The families of hourly workers paid less than $7.25 an hour in 2005 more often were poor, receiving welfare, and lacking health insurance. 

It is unconscionable that in America, we have millions of people working full-time and year-round and still living in poverty. At $5.15 an hour, a full-time minimum wage worker brings home $10,712 a year –nearly $6,000 below the poverty level for a family of three.  An average CEO earns more before lunchtime than a minimum wage worker makes all year.

American families have seen their real income drop by almost $1,300 since 2000 while the costs of gasoline, heating fuel and healthcare have soared. 

For families living on minimum wage, this means a greater struggle to put food on the table and to pay the rent. Minimum wage families struggle with the cost of day care and health care.  They struggle to provide a sound education for their children, and, for many, college is a dream beyond their reach.  Today we are doing something to ease their struggle.  Raising the minimum wage is a first step and a clear signal that we, in Congress, will do something.

Raising the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour will add $4,400 to the income of full-time, year-round workers -- enough for a low-income family of three to afford a year of groceries or a year and a half of heat and electricity, or the full two-year tuition for a community college degree. 

Mr. Speaker, it has been 10 years since our lowest paid workers got a raise.  In the intervening years, we in this body have seen many pay raises.  Americans in the top income brackets have seen their earnings soar.  On top of that, they have been the beneficiaries of generous tax cuts.  America’s working poor, our minimum wage earners, have been left behind and left out.  But no more.  It is a new day and a new Congress.  Fairness will take center stage.

I urge all my colleagues to support this legislation and I yield back the balance of my time.