Bush Signs Bill Hiking Base Wage to $4.25

President Bush on Friday signed a bill that will raise the minimum wage to $4.25 an hour from $3.35 by the spring of 1991, formally accepting the compromise that ended a year of disagreement with congressional Democrats and organized labor.

Bush praised the measure, which he said would “protect jobs and put more money into the pockets of our workers.” But Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said it merely marked progress “to the 50-yard line” on the issue.

The increase, the first since 1981, would bring the wage to $4.25 an hour by April, 1991, after going to an intermediate $3.80 on April 1, 1990.

The new law includes a lower “training wage” for new workers who are teen-agers, a provision sought by Bush but initially opposed by congressional Democrats.

Bush in June vetoed a bill that would have increased the wage to $4.55 over three years.

At an Oval Office signing ceremony attended by congressional leaders and sponsors, Bush called the new act “a good example of what we can do in the future on other matters.”

Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, told reporters: “It’s not as much as the working poor deserve, but it was a real compromise and it brought the President’s position to one of not saying take it or leave it.”

Kennedy said a Democratic-led effort to raise the wage further in 1992, a presidential election year, was “a live option.”

Under terms of the new law, young people 16 to 19 years old who have never worked could be paid the training wage for 90 days. Employers with a training plan in place could pay the young workers a training rate for 90 days more.

The training wage would be $3.35 an hour after next April 1. When the minimum wage increases to $4.25 a year later, the subminimum would increase to $3.61 an hour. The provision allowing for the subminimum expires in April, 1993, unless extended by Congress.

Among others at the signing ceremony were Labor Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole, Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) and Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.)