President Bush today renewed his threat to veto legislation raising the minimum wage beyond $4.25 an hour as Senate Democrats moved to quickly pass a bill raising the wage floor to $4.55. House Minority Leader Bob Michel, R-Ill., who met with Bush and relayed his comments to reporters, said the president ``made it abundantly clear there will be absolutely no flexibility, not one penny, not one deviation'' from his position on the minimum wage. Bush met with Republican congressional leaders hours before the Senate opened debate on the legislation. The Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., would raise the hourly minimum from $3.35 to $4.65 by January 1992 and contains no provision allowing a lower wage for new workers. But Kennedy aides said he would offer an amendment making his measure identical to the House bill passed two weeks ago, which has a final wage of $4.55 and would allow employers to pay new entrants in the job market a ``sub-minimum'' for two months. Bush has insisted that employers be allowed to pay any new employees a sub-minimum ``training wage'' for six months. The GOP leaders who met with Bush said he also reiterated his opposition to shortening that time frame. Another of the Republicans with whom Bush met, Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., told reporters afterward that ``the message that was given to the president by the Senate (GOP) leadership was that we're going to stand with him on the minimum wage issue. And we urged him not to back down from his commitment to $4.25 and the six-month training wage.'' Republicans could thwart the Democrats' quick-passage strategy by staging a filibuster, but an aide to one leading GOP senator said there were no plans to do that. The aide said it appeared the Democrats had the votes to win passage of their plan by early next week. Meanwhile, a new poll said there was overwhelming public support for an increase in the minimum wage, which has been at $3.35 since 1981. The Washington Post@ABC News survey, conducted March 30 through April 3, said 84 percent of respondents backed an increase while 14 percent did not. Eighty-two percent said they favored an increase even if it would trigger higher consumer prices. But only about half of the 84 percent who initially favored a higher minimum wage said they would hold to that opinion even if it meant businesses would stop hiring, or would fire, workers because of added payroll costs caused by a higher minimum wage. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. By agreeing to amend his bill, Kennedy, provided the amended version wins passage, averts the need for a conference committee to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions. A number of other amendments were also expected, including a GOP attempt to substitute Bush's proposal. A lobbyist in favor of raising the minimum wage said Bush's repeated veto threats had all but quashed any hopes by Democratic sponsors of avoiding a showdown with the president. ``He says he won't compromise so I don't see a need for us to do anything except send him our bill,'' said AFL-CIO lobbyist Robert McGlotten. Bush has been adamant in saying he would veto the House-passed bill and appears to have the votes to sustain a veto in both chambers of Congress. While the House-passed bill cuts the final target of the hourly minimum wage to $4.55, it moves up the effective dates of the three increases from Jan. 1 to Oct. 1 _ meaning the first increase would come this year and the last jump would occur Oct. 1, 1992. Bush has proposed three 30-cent increases in the minimum wage beginning Jan. 1, 1990, and ending two years later with the hourly minimum at $4.25. The president said his support for those increases hinges on a provision allowing employers to pay new workers a sub-minimum wage for six months regardless of any past experience with another employer. The sub-minimum, under the Bush plan, would be $3.35 an hour after the first increase in the minimum wage. It would rise to $3.40 an hour by 1992. The House-passed bill sets the wage for new hires _ provided it is their first job _ at $3.35 effective Oct. 1. When the subsequent increases in the minimum wage took effect the sub-minimum would rise as well, to 85 percent of the minimum. The provision allowing the new-hire wage would expire on Sept. 30, 1992.
House Minority Leader Michel said that the President would show no flexibility on his position on the minimum wage. Senator Kennedy, whose Senate bill calls for a higher wage than the House, said that he would offer an amendment to make his bill identical to that of the House. A new poll showed strong backing for the increased wage even it triggered higher consumer prices, but fewer favored it if it meant loss of jobs. Bush has proposed increases leading to a rate of $4.25 by 1992, if employers could hire new workers at a sub-minimum wage for six months. The House bill would raise the wage to $4.55