Last week, these wingnuts on the Fox "business block" were upset about the lack of consumer spending, but ignoring the need to raise the minimum wage. This week on Cavuto's show, his panel was terribly upset that some welfare benefits are paying more than minimum wage in some states, and one of his guests, Ben Stein, threw in some fearmongering over raising it as well.
As I've said time and time again, the favorite hobby of these guys is to attack poor people, attack unions, attack the social safety nets, and to carry water for the wealthy in America and scream to the hills if they're asked to pay one more penny in taxes.
As our friends at Media Matters reported, they've been doing their best to feed the public lies about minimum wage for some time now, which is what Stein did in this segment, when he claimed that doubling it would lead to doubling the unemployment rate. They've got more on that here: REPORT: Fox's Month Of Inaccurate Minimum Wage Coverage:
Throughout the month of July, a majority of Fox News' segments discussing minimum wage policy pushed the myth that increasing the minimum wage forces businesses to cut jobs. In fact, multiple economic studies confirm that raising the minimum wage has no effect on employment.
Majority Of Fox's July Reports On Minimum Wage Argued Wage Hikes Lead To Job Losses
A Majority Of Fox News' July Coverage Of The Minimum Wage Claimed Wage Hikes Increased Unemployment. A Media Matters count of Fox News segments covering the minimum wage during the month of July determined that 24 out of 37 segments -- 65 percent -- included the myth that increasing the minimum wage would cause job losses.
Only One Fox News Segment Acknowledged That Minimum Wage Raises Do Not Cause Unemployment. Only one segment, or just under three percent of Fox News' coverage, acknowledged the fact that minimum wage hikes are not correlated with unemployment.
Go read the rest for more on why Stein was just pulling numbers out of his posterior here. They all had a good chuckle when Charles Payne brought up the fact that he was "attacked" on Comedy Central. It was the first time I've seen any of them actually acknowledge that they were being mocked on there, but of course he didn't actually name the show or what was said other than saying he was called "cruel."
Don't count on them showing any footage of John Oliver, or Jon Stewart when he gets back ripping them to shreds any time soon. As we all know here, viewers of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are a lot better informed than anyone who watches Rupert Murdoch's carnival barkers and actually takes them seriously. I'm sure they'd like to do their best to try to keep them that way.
