How many millions of jobs will be lost if the Democrats raise the national minimum wage to $15 an hour? The national, a federal minimum wage. Not state. Not neighborhood. Not city. Not local. Federal minimum wage. Because back on Tuesday, the Democrats introduced a bill that would raise the minimum wage nationally to $15 an hour over five years.
It would more than double the current minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. It’s called the Raise the Wage Act. Oh, it’s so simple. “Rage the Ways Act.” It would increase pay from $9.50 an hour in 2021 to $11 in 2022, and in 2023 it would rise to $12.50 an hour. It would hit 14 bucks an hour in ’24.
It wouldn’t be until 2025 that it hits 15 bucks an hour. Do you know how many jobs would be lost? This is guaranteed to be true, by the way. This is not speculation. It’s not conservative theory. We have enough data with the imposition of the minimum wage in various states and cities, various local levels. We know what happens with the implementation of a minimum wage.
The number of jobs that will be lost would be at least 1.3 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Which means that members of Congress are okay with it! They’re gonna move ahead with the legislation anyway, even though their own budget office says you’re gonna cost the country 1.3 million jobs. The truth is it’s gonna be higher than that.
Most economists who are not socialists think the number will be much higher. Now, I have attempted over the 30 years of this program to explain the minimum wage and why it’s a bogus proposition countless times, and I’m going to do it again. I have found over the course of my hosting the program that the minimum wage is something that a lot of people are just sympathetic to, the way it’s presented to them.
“Well, you can’t feed a family of four on $15 an hour! (sputtering)” Well, why isn’t it higher than that? This is the question I always ask. What is the minimum wage? The minimum wage is an arbitrary amount of money that business owners, the majority of whom are small business owners, will be required by federal law that they have to pay, whether the people they hire are worth it or not.
The reason the minimum wage costs jobs is because if the business — small business — currently is paying people entry-level at eight bucks an hour, and all of a sudden they’re told they have to pay ’em 10, well, they don’t have the money laying around in a vault that they’re not using. But a lot of people think that if you are a business, that you’re a millionaire.
