Leave it to a highly-paid Fox News host to complain that $15 an hour for the rest of us – if we happen to live in one of the 15 cities that just raised their minimum wage to that level – is tragic.
Appearing on Fox & Friends yesterday, Varney and cohost Clayton Morris commiserated about what they think is terrible news. From Media Matters:
CLAYTON MORRIS (CO-HOST): I want to talk about the middle class being squeezed, and a lot of business owners, small business owners, scared today. July 1st, minimum wage hike goes into effect in 15 states across this country. Small businesses, I talked to an owner the other day who owns five Subway restaurants. He says, “I am going to have to shut down a couple of my restaurants. I’m going to have to shut them down because I’m only bringing in about 7 percent return on investment and I’m going to have to shut it down.” This is what’s happening.
STUART VARNEY: I think it’s a tragedy. In 15 cities, five different states, the new, higher minimum wage goes into effect today, as of July the 1st. The results of this will not be good. First of all, fewer jobs. Have you been into a lot of restaurants recently? You order on a tablet. You don’t use wait staff any longer. Entry-level positions are going to be wiped out. You go to, say, $15 an hour. That’s $30,000 a year for a standard workweek. Entry-level positions disappear. We will never know the names of those people who will not get a job as an entry level position because of these higher minimum wages, and basically it’s politicians trying to legislate higher wages. Vote for me and you’ll get a wage raise.
Think Progress waded into the weeds and found that not only is a minimum-wage hike not a job killer but states that had minimum wage increases experienced faster job growth than those without a raise.
Wouldn’t you love to see these two try to live on $15 an hour for a year? Do you think they’d be whining that it’s too generous if they did?
Crossposted at Newshounds.us
