Dole Ties OK on Wage Hike to Budget Plan

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole indicated for the first time Sunday that he would be willing to support a hike in the minimum wage if Democrats and Republicans agreed on a seven-year balanced-budget plan.

Dole, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, has been dogged in recent weeks by his refusal to allow Senate floor votes on various proposals to increase the current $4.25-an-hour minimum wage.

The Kansas senator said on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation” that he was “blindsided” last week by a group of 20 House Republicans who proposed two successive 50-cent increases.

“The House has already indicated they’re going to pass the minimum wage,” Dole said. “It’ll come to the Senate. And what we’ll try to do, if there is an increase, is to package it with some other things. . . . “

But Dole continued to insist that he would not permit a separate vote on the measure and warned that many workers, particularly in the retail and fast-food industries, would lose jobs if a wage hike was enacted.

The Clinton administration was quick to embrace Dole’s remarks on the contentious issue, which Democrats have sought to capitalize on in their campaign to regain control of the House and retain the presidency in the November elections.

“President Clinton and moderate Republicans have now joined together to support an increase in the minimum wage,” White House advisor George Stephanopoulos said in a telephone interview. “Sen. Dole should follow our lead, and we expect he will eventually.”

Democrats are seeking a 90-cent increase over two years.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said Sunday that he also would support a minimum-wage increase, but only if the measure was part of a package that included provisions such as a $500-per-child tax credit and “more take-home pay for union members”--a reference to GOP attempts to restrict labor unions’ authority to collect fees for political purposes.

Gingrich also said he favors a training wage that would pay a lower initial rate to first-time employees, followed by an increase within six months on the job.

“I think that saves an awful lot of black and Hispanic teenage jobs in the inner city,” he said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

Dole said he wants to tie the increase to new rules for part-time work or compensatory time off, moves that unions “aren’t crazy about.”

Dole also noted that the GOP is prepared to raise the minimum wage as part of an agreement to balance the federal budget in seven years. He called the Democrats’ demand to seek separate action a sign that they “have given up on any bipartisan agreement on a budget.”

“This is strictly a political move, not an economic move, but we have to deal with it and we assume we will,” Dole said.