It was stacked in the queue behind health care.
White House congressional liaison told Bob Reich that the minimum wage would have to wait until 1995--that swing Republicans like Chafee and Jeffords and swing Democrats like Breaux were worried about the health-care mandate's effect on employers of minimum-wage workers, that talking about raising the minimum wage in 1994 would (perhaps) make health care reform more difficult, and that health care reform was the number one priority.
Look: I never said that the Clinton White House had phenomenal political instincts. I never even said that they are competent. But (with the exception of Bruce Reed) the people around Clinton-Gore were *not* the neoliberal trolls you imagine.
*We* live in the Treasury.
:-)
Brad DELong