Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), prince of a human being, on the minimum wage, which he has voted against raising, and on minimum wage workers:
JOHNSON: Bottom line: when you’re a good worker you don’t stay at minimum wage for long. [disbelieving laughter, dissenting noises from audience]
Trust me on that. It’s not universal. It’s not universal, but trust me as an employer, as an employer I certainly didn’t want to lose good employees. And so you actually have a better marketplace. And so if your employer is not paying you good wages and you’re a good worker, you go look for other places. Now that’s hard to do, that’s hard to do when we have such high levels of unemployment. But, again, I would get back to we don’t have a very attractive place for business investment.
Tracey Pollock, who took the video, and Johnson's constituents pressed him:
Tracey Pollock: Senator, have you ever lived off of minimum wage before? Do you have any idea what it’s like for a family to live off of minimum wage.
[...]
Johnson: My first job was for a $1.45 an hour. And again I worked full time. And I think the most number of hours I worked was going to college, was 96 in a week plus taking full workload.
Constituent: How much did college cost when went?
Johnson: It was a lot cheaper
Constituent: And how much was your rent?
Johnson: I was able to live at my parents house. OK?
Pollock: So you actually didn’t have to support yourself off of minimum wage. Is that what you’re saying?
Johnson: No. But I supported myself after I got my education.
Trust him, he knows. As someone who worked 14 hour days, seven days a week, plus taking a full college course load, he definitely knows what it's like to support yourself on minimum wage. Except for the part where he wasn't paying rent or supporting anyone. But I totally believe that he was working the hours he says he was working.
Think Progress cites the inconvenient data about how "a nontrivial fraction of workers" actually do spend a significant part of their working lives at or right near the minimum wage, and how this disproportionately affects women, people of color, and less educated people.
Johnson's answer, I'm sure, would be "well, those are your bad workers." Because it's easy to dismiss people's actual struggles and the challenge of getting away from minimum wage when you think that working while living at home and attending college is as hard as it gets. Never mind when you think that "I supported myself after I got my education" has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you married a rich man's daughter right after graduation and spent most of your adult life working for and eventually owning a business started by her family. Maybe Johnson even believes his personal myth that he got where he is solely through hard work and that the advantages he had along the way were inconsequential to where he ended up. In which case, just add arrogance and a talent for self-deception to the obvious Randian assholery of his views on the minimum wage.