Conferees Approve Minimum-Wage Hike

House and Senate negotiators approved legislation Tuesday to raise the federal minimum wage to $4.55 an hour--30 cents more than President Bush says he will accept--setting the stage for final passage next week and a certain confrontation with the White House.

The conference committee accepted the Senate version of a key “training wage” provision demanded by Bush that would allow employers to pay new workers 85% of the current minimum in an effort to stave off any job cutbacks that might result from increased costs.

The bill that the conferees approved would allow employers to pay the new sub-minimum wage for all new workers whose total experience in the work force amounts to less than 60 days. The House version of the bill would have permitted the sub-minimum only for first-time jobholders.

The Democratic-drafted measure now goes back to the full House and Senate for final approval--probably sometime next week--and then to Bush, who is considered almost certain to veto it.

Democratic strategists conceded Tuesday that they are not likely to muster the two-thirds majorities that would be needed to override a presidential veto. The initial votes in both the House and Senate fell well short of two-thirds margins.

The White House, apparently confident of victory, has refused to negotiate. Some strategists believe that unless Bush draws the line on the issue, Democrats will be emboldened to challenge him with more expensive proposals on other social issues.

If the lawmakers were to override a Bush veto, it would mark the first time in eight years that the federal minimum wage has been increased. President Ronald Reagan opposed raising the wage, contending that a higher minimum would raise business costs and discourage new job creation.

The current federal minimum is $3.35 an hour.

The hiatus has continued so long that many states--including California--have enacted state minimum wages that are higher than the federal figure. California’s state minimum wage now is $4.25 an hour.

The issue is an emotional one politically. Democrats argue that the minimum should be raised as a matter of equity because inflation has significantly eroded the purchasing power that the current $3.35-an-hour minimum wage would buy when it was enacted in 1981.

At the same time, Republicans contend that some businesses would react by trimming jobs or deciding not to create new ones, ultimately harming those workers who need help most.

But analysts say that in economic terms the outcome is likely to have little real impact because the unemployment rate is so low and relatively few workers actually earn the minimum wage.

The debate in the conference committee session reflected just such partisan considerations. Democrats, who agreed to include the Bush-proposed “training wage” only to gain support of conservatives in their own party, lambasted the provision Tuesday.

Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) argued that the proposal for a sub-minimum wage still is so repugnant to mainstream Democrats that Congress ought to scrap it entirely if Bush is not willing to negotiate on the minimum wage measure.

But Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House conferees, insisted that the leadership still has some hope that Bush might come around. “We’re doing it because we’re trying to be as reasonable as possible--to provide an inducement” for Bush, he said.