Backers of House legislation to raise the minimum wage lowered their target to $4.55 an hour on the eve of debate as President Bush declared he had the votes to sustain a veto should Congress go above $4.25. The Democratic sponsors of the bill, scheduled for floor debate beginning today, also agreed Tuesday to include a sub-minimum training wage in their measure, a 60-day proposal that falls far short of the six-month period demanded by Bush. And the president, at a White House meeting with reporters, insisted he had made his best and last offer to raise the wage, which has been frozen for eight years. Bush appeared with Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole, who was there to deliver a letter from 35 Republican senators who promised to side with Bush should he veto minimum-wage legislation that fails to meet White House guidelines. The administration guidelines include raising the minimum wage, now at $3.35 an hour, to $4.25 an hour by 1992, provided employers can pay new hires a ``training wage'' of $3.35 an hour for six months. The administration says the sub-minimum wage is needed for employers to create and fill entry-level jobs. Mrs. Dole, appearing today on ``CBS This Morning,'' said, ``Many more jobs and job opportunities are saved if you have a six-month training wage.'' The minimum wage ``is not the tool for lifting people out of poverty. Most people on minimum wage are very young, they are part-time workers ... they're living at home and they're not in poverty,'' Mrs. Dole said. ``If we are trying to lift people out of poverty, let's go to other means such as training and education and literacy.'' ``There's enough votes in our grasp here to see that we don't bust the budget and increase the pressures on inflation by going beyond that which the secretary and I have agreed on,'' Bush said Tuesday. ``We've thought out a level of increase on the minimum wage that would help people and yet would not add gasoline to any inflation fires that are burning.'' The 35 senators, if their support for Bush held, would leave Democrats short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto. ``For eight years this same coalition of Republican senators has blocked any increase in the minimum wage,'' said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., sponsor of a Senate bill to raise the minimum wage to $4.65 by 1992. ``Every American who works for a living deserves a living wage, not a sub-poverty wage.'' Senate floor action is still pending on Kennedy's bill. The bill due for House debate today calls for raising the minimum wage to $4.65 by 1992 and has no provision for a sub-minimum training wage, an idea long opposed by the sponsors and organized labor, which has been lobbying heavily against such proposals. But the sponsors, facing mounting pressure from the White House and moderate Democrats, agreed to scale back the final level to $4.55 and add a training wage in an amendment worked out Tuesday that has the support of the House leadership. At the same time, however, they said they would move up the effective date of the initial increase, to $3.85 an hour, to Oct. 1, three months earlier than had been planned. The amendment, to be offered Thursday, calls for then boosting the minimum wage to $4.25 on Oct. 1, 1990, and to $4.55 a year later. The 60-day training wage would apply only to new entrants in the job market, exclude agricultural workers, and expire on Sept. 30, 1992, according to aides. The training wage would initially be $3.35 an hour but would increase to 85 percent of the subsequent increases in the minimum wage. Workers hired to fill jobs that had been vacated by recent layoffs could not be paid the training wage, a provision designed to prevent abuse of the system in order to pay lower wages.
House backers for raising the minimum wage lowered their target to $ 4.55 per hour as President Bush declared that they had the votes to sustain a veto of any amount over $ 4.25 . They also agreed to a sub - minimum training wage , but for 60 days rather than the 6-month period demanded by Bush . Labor Secretary Dole said that most minimum wage earners are young , part time , and living at home and not in poverty . The 60 day training wage would apply only to new workers and exclude agriculture workers . It could not be paid to workers hired to replace recently laid - off employees .