January 16, 2014

As we've discussed here time and time again, one of their favorite hobbies over at Fox "news" is beating up on those living in poverty and to fearmonger over the supposed perils of raising the minimum wage. This Thursday, Your World host Neil Cavuto decided to get a little help in that department from former Heinz CEO, William Johnson.

Johnson used the opportunity to tell one of the right's favorite myths about why the minimum wage should not be raised -- it's a job killer:

Conservative opposition to a higher minimum wage hinges on a few tired arguments that ultimately protect big businesses and hurt low-income workers. Here are the favorite conservative myths when it comes to the minimum wage and why there’s really nothing to them:

1) The minimum wage kills jobs. “It’s a classic election-year ploy to make the Democrats look like they’re protecting low-income workers. I think it’s well understood that raising the minimum wage hurts workers on the lower end of the pay scale in that it does kill jobs,” said a recent statement from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. However, several academic studies have shown that raising the minimum wage does not have a negative effect on employment. In fact, an analysis of state minimum wage increases showed that those state boosting their wage “had job growth slightly above the national average.”

I don't know about anyone else, but I also have a very hard time listening to someone who USA Today described as the $212 million man earlier this year due to his golden parachute offer -- and who was ranked #60 in top CEO compensation according to Forbes back in 2011, having to get by on a paltry $19 mil a year, carping about how we can't afford to pay workers a living wage.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon