House Votes $4.25 Minimum Wage : Legislation: The compromise is sent to the Senate. Bush may sign it in time for Thanksgiving.

Spurred by a green light from President Bush, the House voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time in nine years, from $3.35 to $4.25 an hour by April, 1991, with a lower starting rate for teen-agers.

“The working poor of this country are still going to be very poor . . . but let’s give them a little bit more,” said Rep. Doug Applegate (D-Ohio) as he urged passage.

The bipartisan compromise, approved 382 to 37, was sent to the Senate for passage this week in hopes that Bush will sign it before Thanksgiving as a symbolic gesture to America’s 8 million lowest-paid workers.

Bush, who once said he would not negotiate improvements on his own plan, apparently yielded to arguments from Republicans who said the remaining differences between his proposal and a rival Democratic plan were too small to continue a months-old deadlock.

Some Republicans said also that, if Bush did not compromise, he was inviting comparison to his proposal to cut the capital gains tax, which would benefit wealthy Americans.

If the new rate becomes law, it would mark the first time since President Ronald Reagan entered the White House that Congress has successfully passed legislation to increase the minimum wage, first enacted in 1938 as a keystone of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.

The wage hike will have no impact in California, which already has a state minimum wage of $4.25 an hour.

Democratic leaders called Wednesday’s action a major achievement, and most Republicans said they were happy to go along with the President on the issue after supporting his veto last May of a bill that would have enacted a $4.55 hourly minimum wage over a three-year period.

The AFL-CIO expressed subdued approval, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which opposed any change in the federal pay rate, termed the compromise “an attempt to appease the demands of organized labor.”

The legislation would increase the minimum wage to $3.80 an hour next April 1, and the hourly rate would go up by another 45 cents to $4.25 in April, 1991, for all workers 20 years old or above.

However, teen-agers could be hired for 90 days for 85% of the adult rate but at no less than $3.35 an hour. This rate could be paid for an additional 90 days to teen-age workers if they are hired later by another employer with a training program certified by the Department of Labor.

Bush originally had proposed an increase to $4.25 an hour over three years and a subminimum rate of 85% for all newly hired employees for six months, regardless of their age or previous work experience.

Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.), listing another possible incentive for the White House to take action beyond the capital gains comparison, said that proponents of the Democratic-sponsored legislation were getting close to the two-thirds majority required to override a presidential veto.

In addition, the $3.35 figure was becoming increasingly meaningless as starting wages in most unskilled jobs climbed to $5 an hour or more and the average pay for all rank-and-file workers in the nation moved toward $10 an hour. Thirteen states have enacted higher minimum wages than the federal rate.

Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-Wis.) noted that a person working full time at the federal minimum wage would earn $170 a week or $8,840 a year, well below the federal poverty line set at $12,100 for a family of four.

“We don’t solve that problem today, but we make a step in the right direction,” Gunderson said.

Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. (D-Ohio), however, said: “It’s a sad day in America when people work eight hours a day and still qualify for food stamps.”

Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Los Angeles), floor manager for the bill, said it would take an increase to $4.90 an hour just to preserve the buying power of workers receiving the minimum wage, adding: “We must never again allow a decade to elapse with no action to raise the minimum wage.”

Rep. Harris W. Fawell (R-Ill.) was one of the few to raise the traditional Republican argument that an increase in the minimum wage would raise unemployment and add to inflation.

VOTE ON MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE

WASHINGTON--Here is how members of the California delegation voted Wednesday on a measure to raise the minimum wage to $4.25 an hour by April, 1991:

Democrats for--Anderson, Bates, Beilenson, Berman, Bosco, Boxer, Brown, Condit, Dellums, Dixon, Dymally, Edwards, Fazio, Hawkins, Lantos, Lehman, Levine, Martinez, Matsui, Mineta, Panetta, Pelosi, Roybal, Stark, Torres, Waxman.

Republicans for--Herger, Lagomarsino, Lewis, Lowery, McCandless, Moorhead, Packard, Pashayan, Thomas.

Democrats against--Miller.

Republicans against--Campbell, Cox, Dannemeyer, Dornan, Dreier, Gallegly, Hunter, Rohrabacher.

Republicans not voting--Shumway.