What Millionaire Is Behind the Cynical Campaign to Keep the Minimum Wage Down?
Raise the minimum wage? Psshh, let's lower it.
Arguments against raising the minimum wage are getting sillier and sillier. Recently Steve Forbes, who is worth $430 million, said raising the minimum wage is a "job killer" and wants us to hear the hardship stories of employers in hopes that the American people will be persuaded against a much-needed raise.
We're much smarter than that. It's obvious that the wealthiest people in America have sucked up all the pay raises, writes AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in a column in The Guardian. "Since 1997, all income growth has gone to the wealthiest 10%. Most of those increases have gone to the richest 1%."
A recent national survey conducted for the National Employment Law Project (NELP), by Hart Research Associates, finds just 25% buy the claim that raising America's wage floor so working people can live in decency costs jobs.
Trumka writes:
And the public would be right. Recent respected academic research has determined that raising the minimum wage does not result in job loss—even during bad economic times. Forbes, a two-time unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate, is on the wrong side of the public in more ways than one. The NELP-commissioned survey shows that 80% of the public—including 62% of those in Forbes' own party—supports raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour and adjusting it for inflation in the future, as President Obama and congressional Democrats propose.
Read the rest of Millionaire Steve Forbes Has a Cynical Campaign to Keep Working People Down in The Guardian.
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This has been reposted from the AFL-CIO.
