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If anyone needs a break from the typical fare we're treated to on the bobblehead shows on Sundays, check out some of Chris Hayes' show from this Saturday. It's rare that this kind of in depth and comprehensive discussion happens, even rarer where the discussion is so good, it's worth highlighting multiple segments. But that's exactly the case with this discussion of President Obama's proposal to raise the minimum wage made during his state of the union address, that is already being clouded by the fog of talking points in DC:

Then we’ll dive deep on the president’s proposal to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 $9 an hour, and to index the minimum wage according to inflation, so that it keeps pace with the cost of living. Republicans and business groups have lined up in opposition to a minimum wage increase, and in doing so, they’ve repeated a talking point that has been common in Washington for decades: that an increase in the minimum wage would lead to reductions in employment. As it turns out, there’s a growing body of empirical evidence that indicates that minimum wage increases, within a certain range, have no negative impact on employment, and may actually boost worker productivity and consumer demand, providing a much-needed stimulus to the economy.

For the most part, Hayes' guests were outstanding and really informative to listen to, with the exception of the Hispanic Leadership Network's Jennifer Sevilla Korn. She may be the kinder, gentler face of the Republican Party with toned down rhetoric with respect to the immigration issue, but on Hayes' show, she was nothing but a right wing talking points regurgitation machine with little to no facts to back up her assertions.

If you listen to her carefully during her time on the show, she was challenged by Hayes quite a few times to give specifics for her claims about minimum wage supposedly causing businesses not to hire or that it might cause inflation. How often does that happen? And just like a typical conservative, she never answers him. The same can't be said for the others on the panel who were more than willing to talk about specifics and shoot holes straight through her talking points.

In the segment above, Lew Prince, owner of Vintage Vinyl, Inc. a small business in St. Louis, Missouri, talked about his invitation to come to the White House with a number of other small business owners and they were asked by President Obama "What can I do for you?" Prince recounted that the first thing they all said in unison was to raise the minimum wage to $10 per hour, because "putting three hundred bucks a month in the hands of the customers is the best economic stimulus the country can have and that money tends to get spent in the businesses more than any other."

Unlike Korn, Prince's point is backed up by research.

A 2011 study by the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank finds that minimum wage increases raise incomes and increase consumer spending, especially triggering car purchases. The authors examine 23 years of household spending data and find that for every dollar increase for a minimum wage worker results in $2,800 in new consumer spending by his or her household over the following year.

A 2009 study by the Economic Policy Institute estimates that Obama’s campaign pledge to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011 would inject $60 billion in additional spending into the economy.

The National Employment Law Project's Tsedeye Gebreselassie followed up by discussing the fact that 74 percent of the public supports raising the minimum wage. Unlike the conservatives speaking out against it, they understand that that one cannot live on the current wage and that the minimum wage has not kept pace with inflation. They know the opposition is with the lawmakers supporting the top wage earners only.

Korn cites some unspecified economist-- who of course isn't a partisan--telling her that raising minimum wage is going to cause inflation. While that might be true if it is raised too high or if the economy was in a period of stagflation, that's not the political environment we have now and Prince countered her argument quite nicely.

PRINCE: You won't get a business owner that says that and I'll tell you what, the portion of wages, that is in my cost, is actually relatively small and even in the manufacturing and a whole lot of areas. It is relatively small. My overhead is complicated and large, and the minimum wage and the wage, is actually a small part of it. And prices in America, this is, you know, the great secret – prices in America are not set by the cost of making something or doing something. Prices are set by what market research tells most companies you are willing to pay. You know, the reason a beer is ten bucks at Yankee stadium isn't because...

HAYES: Of course not.

PRINCE: … you can get it there to the bar across the street where it is two bucks.

In the next segment the panel discussed the two different arguments we're seeing from Republicans on why they're against raising the minimum wage. One being the that it will cause a negative effect on employment and the other being that it will cause price spikes that the system cannot absorb.

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Fox & Friends hosted Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council and an advisor to President Obama on economic policy, to preview the president’s State of the Union address tonight. Although Sperling told them that the focus would be on jobs and strengthening the middle class, the Curvy Couch Crew responded by obsessing over cuts to “entitlements” and carping about spending. Boosting employment? Helping the middle class? They neatly avoided the whole subject.

Sperling, when asked for a “20-second preview” said the president would hone in on “what we can do, working together, bi-partisan way, to strengthen the middle class.” He added that “a stronger middle class, better educated, working, in manufacturing, innovation, entrepreneurship, small business, these are the things that drive further economic growth.” He said that the administration has made “a lot of progress since the deep recession of 2009” but that “we have a lot further to go on job creation, on bringing down the deficit, and investing in our people.”

The only discussion about jobs was Brian Kilmeade’s comment that unemployment has just gone up in “year five” of Obama’s presidency. Apparently, he and his co-hosts thought that was all the consideration the subject deserved. He moved on to cite a Fox News poll that found 83% of respondents think government has a “spending problem.” From there, he took a swipe at Nancy Pelosi for saying otherwise and “asked” if the White House agrees.

In my opinion, Sperling should have sidestepped and highlighted what was obviously a pre-planned gotcha question that had nothing to do with the State of the Union address. But, instead, Sperling fell right into the trap of framing cuts as the Big Issue and, even worse, threw Democratic Leader Pelosi under the bus by saying the Obama administration believes “you absolutely have to bring down spending” but “in a balanced way.” He touted how much has already been cut and that there are more cuts on the table.

But, of course, that wasn’t good enough. Steve Doocy griped, “You’ve had five years, why hasn’t this administration addressed fixing entitlements with the Republicans?”

When it was Gretchen Carlson’s turn, she said, “One of the big buzzwords” in the SOTU would be “investment, which is another word for 'stimulus.'” She sneered, “Is the president really going to ask this country for more stimulus money?” She didn’t seem to care about how the previous stimulus increased employment for millions of Americans.

Sperling brought it back to jobs. “Today, we have now created twice as many jobs in this recovery as happened under President Bush in the previous recovery, even though this recovery (sic) was far deeper. …The economy has created 500,000 manufacturing jobs, we haven’t seen that in over 20 years. So you are totally right to suggest we have a lot further to go. That’s why the president has a singular focus on the economy, on middle class jobs, and making more progress.”

Oops, time up. But even as the segment was closing, Kilmeade was changing the subject. “It’s just hard to believe that we’re gonna print more money in order to pull ourselves out of it.”

The hosts could have questioned whether President Obama’s policies would accomplish any of his job-creating, middle-class-strengthening goals. But they were so busy talking about spending, they never got there. Which suggests the Republicans have no plan for the middle class and that that’s what the hosts really didn’t want to talk about.

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For anyone that did not read Jon Perr's post here from back in 2010, I'll just refer our readers back there for a detailed analysis of why what Chris Wallace was repeating here on Fox News Sunday about public sector workers being overpaid is complete nonsense; Republicans Launch Phony War on Public Employees.

Thankfully Chris Wallace did get some push back as well from his guests, Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association and deputy chief of staff at the AFL-CIO, Thea Lee. As Van Roekel pointed out, it's all a game of divide and conquer they're playing, trying to pit private sector employees against government employees to drive a wedge between members of the working class. As Jon noted in his post and as the two union leaders pointed out as well, public sector workers are not overpaid when you take into consideration their education levels.

As Jon wrote:

The report by Labor and Employment Relations Professor Jeffrey Keefe of Rutgers University revealed that public employees are undercompensated compared to similarly skilled private sector counterparts:

The study analyzes workers with similar human capital. It controls for education, experience, hours of work, organizational size, gender, race, ethnicity and disability and finds that, compared to workers in the private sector, state government employees are undercompensated by 7.55% and local government employees are undercompensated by 1.84%. The study also finds that the benefits that state and local government workers receive do not offset the lower wages they are paid.

The public/private earnings differential is greatest for doctors, lawyers and professional employees, the study finds. High school-educated public workers, on the other hand, are more highly compensated than private sector employees, because the public sector sets a floor on compensation. The earnings floor has collapsed in the private sector.

I find it particularly cynical that these overpaid millionaires on television are carping about those greedy government workers that get $14 or so average an hour in benefits. I wonder how far that would go towards paying what Chris Wallace receives as part of his benefits package as a paid propagandist for Fox? Corporate America wants a race to the bottom on benefits and wages and Wallace is happy to play along to help them to get it.

Transcript below the fold.

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From Sen. Franken's You Tube page:

Sen. Franken spoke on the Senate floor about his new jobs bill, the Strengthening Our Economy Through Employment and Development (SEED) Act. The SEED Act, informally known as Cash for Jobs, would take $10 billion in existing funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and re-allocate it to creating jobs in the private and public sectors.