Rick Santorum Flip-Flops On Minimum Wage

By Heather — May 6, 2014

I guess it's asking too much of MSNBC's Chuck Todd to point out to former Sen. Rick Santorum that he has managed within the course of a week to completely reverse himself --on the same network -- when it comes to his position on whether Republicans ought to be opposed to raising the minimum wage.

During his April 29th appearance on Morning Joe, where he was also hawking his book and the pretending he's some sort of economic populist (see clip below), he said this:

“Today, large businesses are doing well, and stock and commodity prices are strong,” Santorum writes in Blue Collar Conservatives: Recommitting to an America That Works. “If you are an owner or investor, life has been pretty good. But for workers, it’s a different story…We have to admit that for the people at the bottom, that’s what it feels like these days—just a trickle.”

But during an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Tuesday, Santorum took an unexpected turn in advocating on behalf of workers: he argued against increasing the nation’s minimum wage.

“If you want to hire somebody, you’ve got to pay them this and pay them that,” Santorum began. “We keep — for helping people, the minimum wage, we’re going to help people. We’re going to make wages more. You do that, you disincentivize people to hire and incentivize them to buy a machine.” The position actually flies in the face of Santorum’s voting record as a Senator, when he was sometimes in favor of raising the minimum wage.

I'm guessing one of his advisers poll tested how that interview went, because here he is this Monday flip flopping on Todd's show: Rick Santorum: GOP Opposition To Minimum Wage 'Makes No Sense':

Former senator and GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said Monday that the Republican Party's hard-line stance against minimum wage increases "makes no sense."

"I don't understand," Santorum said on MSNBC's "The Daily Rundown with Chuck Todd." "This is one I don't get. If the Republicans want to go out and say, 'We're against the minimum wage,' then go out and make the argument to the American public and 80-some percent of the American public believes we should have the minimum wage. But they're making arguments about why we shouldn't have any increase."

Indeed, the minimum wage is extremely popular in America, and recent polling shows wide backing for the particular Democratic proposal now being considered by Congress. Republicans, however, have lined up squarely against the measure, which would gradually raise the federal wage floor from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour and then tie it to an inflation index.

As Santorum noted, Republican lawmakers haven't debated how much to increase the minimum wage and when. Instead they have opted to oppose the very idea of raising the wage floor at all -- even though it's been raised more than 20 times since the minimum wage was first established in 1938.

Santorum argued that Republicans need to take a more reasonable approach to the issue and concede that the minimum wage needs to be raised once in a while. He said he believes it should be periodically increased so that it covers a certain percentage of the workforce.

"According to the numbers I've seen, the minimum wage covers about 2 percent of all workers. Historically, it's been 7 to 9 percent," Santorum told Todd. "And so what I've said -- and I argued this when I was in Congress -- we should try to keep it in the 7 percent range … Whatever gets you to 7 percent. Then, if it falls back, you have to look at the situation. If we're in an economic crisis, you may not want to raise it. If things are better, you probably do want to raise it."