Marco Rubio knows you can't live on minimum wage, but he wouldn't raise it

Laura Clawson for Daily Kos Labor

Daily Kos Staff

Wednesday October 14, 2015 · 12:16 PM PDT

2015/10/14 · 12:16

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U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL). REUTERS/Jason Reed

Wow. Marco Rubio knows "you can't live on $11 an hour." That almost sounds like support for higher wages and empathy for people struggling with low pay. But of course there's a huge, huge limit on it:

"I have the full confidence that the American private sector, made up of the most innovative and productive people on this planet, won’t just create millions of jobs. They will create millions of jobs that pay more. Because even the jobs that are being created now don’t pay enough. You can’t live on $10 an hour. You can’t live on $11 an hour," he said during a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Wednesday.
"We need jobs that pay much more than that, but we have to have an economy and economic policies that make America the best place in the world to create jobs that pay more," he continued.

Oh. So Rubio thinks it would be awfully nice if businesses would pay wages people could live on, but the policies he's interested in are about making things easier for businesses, not workers. And maybe eventually the policy giveaways to business will trickle down to workers in the form of higher wages. Rubio has "full confidence," in fact, even though he is fully aware that it's not happening now.

But Marco Rubio certainly does not want to raise the minimum wage or even necessarily have a minimum wage law at all. He's just going to keep on being confident and pushing policies in the name of corporate profits, not living wages. And working people should just stand around waiting to be trickled down on.

Marco Rubio knows you can't live on minimum wage, but he wouldn't raise it

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