Civil Rights Groups Angry at Congressional Block of Minimum Wage Increase
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 8/8/2006
Democrats and civil rights groups accused Republican leadership of jeopardizing the long-desired minimum wag increase, by tying it to the contentious repeal of the estate tax.Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R. Tenn., scheduled a vote for August 4 on a "trifecta bill" the House passed last week, which combines the minimum wage increase with the estate tax repeal. Observers said Frist's decision is a political ploy that forces Democrats to pass legislation they would otherwise oppose in order to get the minimum wage increase they have tried to get through Congress for nine years.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called the proposal a "cynical poison pill" designed to kill the minimum wage increase. "The minimum wage increase should not depend on whether billionaires get another tax break," said Sweeney.
"Playing political games with the livelihood of so many struggling Americans is repugnant," said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR). "This move would put millions of dollars into the pockets of the wealthiest Americans and condemn more than 15 million of the nation's poorer workers to salaries that do not meet their basic needs."
"Members of Congress raised their own pay - no strings attached. Surely, common decency suggests that minimum wage workers deserve the same respect.", said Sen. Ted Kennedy, D. Mass., who introduced the minimum wage increase bill last year with Rep. George Miller, D. Ca. that is included in the "trifecta bill."
A full repeal of the estate tax would cost the nation $1 trillion, according to the Center for American Progress.
Republicans have been trying to push through a repeal of the estate tax claiming it is an unfair burden on the rich. However, "very few estates are taxed, only the largest are affected, and many heirs are already multimillionaires or billionaires," according to a LCCR letter to the Senate.
Similarly, Democrats have been trying to increase the minimum wage for years, but Republicans have blocked it. The federal minimum wage was last increased in 1997 to $5.15.
According to a report issued by Americans for Democratic Action, titled Income and Inequality: Millions Left Behind, "The value of minimum wage is at its second lowest level in the last 45 years."
The real value of the minimum wage is more than $4.00 below what it was in 1968, according to a fact sheet from the Sen. Kennedy's office. To have the purchasing power today that it had in 1968, the minimum wage would have to be $9.26 an hour.
