House Vote on Minimum Wage Is Up in Air

House Republican leaders, inching back from what Democrats had considered to be a commitment to allow a vote on a minimum-wage increase, announced plans Wednesday to prepare a package of other ways to increase family take-home pay.

Among the suggestions of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) were such familiar GOP proposals as a $500-per-child tax credit and tax breaks for businesses that create more jobs.

“Big government, high taxes and excessive red tape are what stand between working Americans and better jobs and a higher standard of living,” Gingrich and Armey said in a joint statement. “We must address these obstacles to allow Americans to earn more and keep more of what they earn.”

Absent from the list was a minimum-wage increase from the present $4.25 an hour to $5.15 in two annual 45-cent steps, a proposal by President Clinton that enjoys broad support in public opinion polls and has gained momentum in both the House and the Senate. Congressional analysts say they believe that an increase in the minimum wage would easily pass both chambers--if leaders allowed it to come to a vote.

Gingrich and Armey declined to say whether they would allow the full House to vote on an increase. But Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said: “Nobody is fooled by the latest Republican proposal to avoid a vote on the minimum wage.”

Gephardt accused the GOP leaders of offering “an agenda of phony promises to workers while leaving out the one thing that could make a difference for millions of people right away--an increase in the minimum wage.”

In the Senate, Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said nothing Wednesday to change his position that Clinton’s minimum-wage bill should be subjected to a vote.

Gingrich and Armey said they would offer their package of proposals to boost family incomes as part of this year’s package of spending cuts and tax cuts designed to put the federal budget on a path toward balance.

The Republican-controlled Congress tried but failed last year to enact similar legislation, as Clinton vetoed one version. The $500-per-child tax credit and business tax incentives were major features of that bill.

In addition to those measures, Gingrich and Armey said the proposals that would be put to a vote in the House would include:

* Changes in the earned-income tax credit, a tax break for low-income workers, that would boost the benefit for the very poorest workers and reduce or eliminate it for many of the rest.

* Protections for employee pensions.

* Relaxing labor laws to allow workers more flexible schedules.

* Provisions to end “abusive” liability lawsuits that increase prices to consumers.

* Provisions giving union workers “the right to spend their hard-earned dollars on their families” by restricting the ability of unions to collect fees for political purposes.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, Republicans blocked an effort by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) to attach a minimum-wage increase to an immigration bill.