The federal minimum wage has remained stagnant at $7.25 per hour in the United States for more than a decade, but Democrats have called for a raise in the federal minimum wage to at least $15 per hour—the bare minimum to afford basic needs in with a full time job in most states.
Republicans have railed against raising the wage, arguing that paying a livable wage would harm business owners and result in inflation. They've also insisted that minimum wage jobs were designed as stepping stones to livable wages.
In a recent interview with Fox News, conservative economist Art Laffer said that some people weren't worth $15 per hour in the first place.
Watch below.
Laffer said:
"For those people who are coming into the labor force brand fresh, not old timers who've been around for a while—the poor, the minorities, the disenfranchised, those with less education, young people who haven't had the job experience—these people aren't worth $15 an hour in most cases."
He continued:
"And so therefore when you have a $15 an hour minimum wage, they don't get that first job, they don't get the requisite skills to earn above the minimum wage, and after a few years they become unemployable and after becoming unemployable, they become hostile."
People were amazed Laffer said the quiet part out loud.
They were disgusted by the diatribe.
Democrats offered a bill to gradually raise the minimum wage by 2025 earlier this year, but it failed thanks to Republicans and moderate Democratic Senators like Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
@SecretaryBurgum/X
@Doug Ellin/X
@evanrachelwood/Instagram