The $3.35-per-hour minimum wage “never should have been applied to young people looking for summer jobs, after-school jobs,” said President Reagan last week, in defending his Administration’s proposal for a sub-minimum wage for youths.
“The line on the chart for unemployment for teen-agers goes right along increasing with the increase in minimum wage,” he said in support of a proposal to pay young people $2.50 per hour for summer employment.
Democratic Congressman George Miller of California, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Labor Standards, opposed the proposal, citing the nation’s “tradition of equal work for equal pay.”
“Before Ronald Reagan looks to the schoolyard for a solution to the unemployment problem, he should look at their parents who are standing in line in hiring halls,” the Representative said.
Earlier this month, the Education Department announced in the Federal Register the kinds of projects it planned to fund through the Women’s Educational Equity Act program in the currect fiscal year.
Noticeably absent from that list was a recommendation by the National Advisory Council on Women’s Educational Programs--the politically conservative panel appointed by President Reagan to oversee the women’s program--that the program earmark approximately half of its $5.7-million budget for a new effort involving cash scholarships for college-bound high-school girls who display an aptitude for mathematics and science.
Among other things, the program will fund projects on Title IX compliance and educational equity for minorities and disabled females. Although 25 percent of the funds are to be allotted for projects “that focus on the particular problems of women in mathematics and science programs,” no mention was made of the scholarships proposal.
The Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee has resolved a dispute among its new Republican members and former members by adding one new member to the committee’s majority and one to the minority.
Early last month, Republican Senators Paula Hawkins of Florida and John P. East of North Carolina were forced to relinquish their seats on the committee when they chose other committee assignments. They were replaced by Alphonse M. D’Amato of New York and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa.
But the two former members protested the loss of their seats, and the Senate Republican leadership solved the problem by removing only one of the new members, Senator D’Amato, from the committee and reinstating Senators Hawkins and East.
The move required the addition of a new Democratic member, and Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut has accepted the seat.
The committee now includes 10 Republicans and eight Democrats.
--Tom Mirga and Eileen White
