So much rage.
After the State of the Union, "hunky but vapid Illinois Congressmeat Aaron Schock" went on MSNBC, where Rachel Maddow immediately brought up something he'd tweeted during the SOTU: That "Obama claimed you can't raise a family on $7.25 hr. NEWS FLASH: you can't do it on $10.10 hr either." This is not, of course, Schock arguing that the minimum wage should be higher than $10.10 an hour, it's Schock arguing that there's really no point to the minimum wage, so why bother? Along the way, he trotted out some zombie lies in an advanced state of decomposition.
"Artificially raising the cost of labor," Schock said, "whether it's from $7.25 to $10 an hour to $15 an hour, is not the way to raise people out of poverty and give them a living wage." That's right next door to opposing the very existence of the minimum wage—not to mention insulting every minimum wage worker who he is suggesting benefit from an "artificially raised" wage. Then he just kept talking:
I'm somebody who started out my career on minimum wage and slowly worked my way up the economic ladder.
"Slowly worked my way up the economic ladder"? Dude, you're 33 and you've been a member of Congress earning more than $150,000 a year for six years. Before that, it's true that you were earning a lot less—as an Illinois state representative since the age of 23. But I'm guessing that the Illinois state rep salary was still a lot more than most people that age were earning (it's currently nearly $68,000 a year).
The fact of the matter is that the minimum wage has always been that in our country, it's been the starting wage ...
Tell that to the many, many fast food and retail workers who've gotten raises just 25 or 40 cents above the minimum wage over years in the same workplace. Okay, the minimum wage was a starting wage in the narrowest sense, but a raise to $10.10 would still make a huge difference in their lives. Even though they are not "starting."
... and the good thing is that most people on the minimum wage are significantly younger than me.
Lie. This is a lie.
In fact:
Their average age is 35, and 88 percent are at least 20 years old. Half are older than 30, and about a third are at least 40.
"Half are older than 30," which means that "most" minimum wage workers are not younger than a 33 year old, however smarmily dishonest he may be.
Schock is right about one thing: $10.10 an hour is not enough, which is why fast food workers have been fighting for $15. But it's a big improvement over $7.25, an amount on which people are struggling to support families, and all of Schock's glib BS is just intended to cover over the fact that he does not want to help these people. He and the Republican Party do not want to ensure that work pays enough to live on.
