The Senate overwhelmingly backed a 90-cent-an-hour increase in the minimum wage Tuesday, boosting the odds that 10 million lower-wage workers will get a pay raise this election year.
The 74-24 vote came after Senate Democrats beat back a Republican amendment aimed at weakening the bill.The House has passed its own measure, and differences must be worked out in a conference committee before a bill can be sent to President Clinton for his signature.
Clinton urged Congress to act promptly.
"Send me the final bill quickly," he said at the White House. "The differences between the House and Senate versions are not significant."
Both the Senate and House versions would increase the minimum wage from $4.25 an hour to $4.75 upon enactment and then, in July 1997, to $5.15.
Only Hawaii and the District of Columbia, with minimum wages of $5.25, have rates already higher than what the new federal minimum would be.
"The invisible Americans who have been left out and left behind were recognized today by the U.S. Senate," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., after the vote.
That comment points up how the minimum wage has become a highly charged election issue.
Democrats from Clinton on down have cast themselves as defenders of the worker against Republicans, whom they accuse of putting businesses above ordinary people.
Many Republicans counter that the minimum wage can actually hurt workers by discouraging business expansion.
"High-flown rhetoric by those who pretend to be on the side of the working men and women is little comfort to those who are turned away when a small business cannot afford to hire them," said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., the Senate majority leader.
One snag remains in getting the bill to Clinton for his signature: Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., the majority whip. Nickles said Tuesday he would try to block a conference on the bill until the Democrats agree to compromise on a separate health bill. But Lott said he does not favor that approach.
Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said it would be politically perilous for Republicans to block a bill favored by so many voters and backed by most of the Senate.
A House-Senate conference would have to iron out differences between the respective bills over tax breaks.
The Senate version would provide tax breaks of about $11 billion over eight years, while the House measure would give breaks of $7 billion. The aim of the tax breaks is to make it easier for businesses to absorb the financial burden of higher wages.
A GOP amendment, sponsored by Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., and backed by Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., would have delayed the wage increase by six months, denied it to workers in businesses earning less than $500,000 a year, and exempted new employees for a time.
Backers of the GOP measure argued that the cost of an increase could cause businesses to go under or to expand less rapidly and thus could end up reducing jobs.
"The smallest of the small employers (will) be forced to lay off workers," said Bond.
But critics said the Bond amendment would keep some 4 million minimum-wage workers from getting the increase. Clinton deemed it a "poison pill" and vowed to veto the bill if the amendment were attached to it.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash, a co-sponsor of the increase and opponent of the Bond proposal, said: "I cannot sit idly by as I hear of those struggling to live on today's minimum wage. . . . I am extremely concerned that 58 percent of those struggling with a minimum wage are women - 5.2 million women, many of these single mothers, would benefit directly from this increase."
The Bond amendment was defeated 52-46.