Rep. Lauren Boebert, Republican of Colorado, appeared to recommend that the nationwide minimal wage needs to be lowered, claiming that the excessive teenage unemployment fee is because of it being too costly for firms to rent younger folks.
Boebert made the remark in response to a tweet from Rep. Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky.
“No taxes on workers under 18 yrs old. I love it because: 1. They need experience to pick a college major. 2. They need to develop a work ethic. 3. The economy needs more workers. 4. They don’t get to vote,” Massie mentioned.
Boebert replied, “So many of our youth have lost the opportunity to enter the workforce due to high minimum wage requirements,” she wrote. “High taxes, insurance, and paid leave requirements are a few of many issues as well. Small business owners are unable to invest in first-time workers or provide them with skills training for their future.”
The federal minimal wage has remained at $7.25 an hour since 2009. If somebody labored 40 hours per week for all 52 weeks within the 12 months and took no days off, they’d solely earn $15,080—a wage under the poverty line and inconceivable for anybody to reside on. In Boebert’s state of Colorado, the minimal wage is $14.81.
Boebert has lengthy argued that the minimal wage is just too excessive.
In 2022, she claimed {that a} greater minimal wage would have prevented her from getting her first job at McDonald’s when she was 15 years outdated.
Opposing a livable minimal wage is unhealthy politics, as polling exhibits that voters overwhelmingly imagine that the federal minimal wage is just too low and needs to be raised.
A Knowledge for Progress ballot from April 2024 discovered that 86% of voters imagine the federal minimal wage needs to be elevated. That quantity is almost similar between Democrats, Republicans, and independents.
Equally, Civiqs’ ballot on minimal wage discovered that simply 5% of voters imagine the federal minimal wage needs to be decrease than $7.25 an hour, as Boebert appears to recommend.
However quite a lot of Republicans, together with President Donald Trump’s Treasury secretary nominee Scott Bessent, are towards growing the federal minimal wage.
Bessent, a billionaire hedge fund supervisor, mentioned throughout his affirmation listening to that he doesn’t suppose it’s time to extend the federal minimal wage.
“I believe that the minimum wage is more of a statewide and regional issue,” he mentioned.
Whereas it’s true that the unemployment fee is the highest for staff between the ages of 16 and 17, it is not as a result of the minimal wage is just too excessive.
Relatively, it is as a result of the labor drive participation fee is presently greater, and older staff with extra expertise and abilities are getting jobs over inexperienced youth, based on an S&P World report.
However that truth doesn’t appear to matter to Boebert.
