Trump 'open' to raising federal minimum wage in GOP agenda break

UPI ^ | 05/05/2016 | By Andrew V. Pestano

[SeekAndFind]

WASHINGTON, May 5 (UPI) -- Soon after becoming the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump said he would be open to raising the federal minimum wage in a notable reversal of GOP policy.

During a debate in November, Trump said he would oppose raising the federal minimum wage, which is currently $7.25 an hour.

"I hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is," Trump said at the time.

Speaking to CNN on Wednesday, Trump was asked about Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders' desire to raise the federal minimum wage to $15.

"You can't live on $7.25 an hour, right?" interviewer Wolf Blitzer asked Trump.

"No, and I'm actually looking at that because I'm very different from most Republicans," Trump said. "I mean, you have to have something that you can live on but what I'm really looking to do is get people great jobs so they make much more money than that, so they make ... much more money than the $15.

"Now, if you start playing around too much with the lower level number, you're not going to be competitive," Trump added.

"But you're open to raising the minimum wage?" Blitzer asked.

"I'm open to doing something with it because I don't like that, but what I really do like is bring our jobs back so they're making much more than $15," Trump replied.

Trump joins former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., as the only GOP presidential candidate who has shown support for raising the federal minimum wage, The Hill reported. Ben Carson briefly supported the policy before backtracking.

Trump's comments, although not concrete, point to a reversal -- or openness to reversal -- in a significant policy.

[Rustybucket]

I agree with both of you. Minimum wage jobs were designed as entry level teaching tools. The benefit to the consumer is that they can get reasonably priced goods because of unskilled labor.

The purpose is to teach skills for later jobs. Today how many of us are aghast that these employees cannot even make correct change? The food quality is all there, but is sloppy. Food orders are often incorrect. Personal appearance is ... unique. Ability to follow direction is tenuous at best, but in each location there are shining examples of people who learn and grow, appreciate the opportunity, and are eager to move on to bigger and better, and better paying jobs.

Then there are the others, who begrudgingly show up late for work, when they are there, are argumentative, or insolent, are non performers, do their jobs poorly, do not interact well with the public, as well as their co-workers, and have no drive to work any more than they absolutely have to, and often complain about too many hours, or not enough, or the wrong days, the list goes on and on.

And these people just described, are the ones who want $15/hr wages. Because they have no desire to improve themselves, resent having to work at all, and hate THE MAN for expecting them to be grateful for their job.

In this scenario, everybody loses. The owner/operator, co-workers, the public. The biggest loser is those employees who do not learn the valuable lessons being taught to them in an ENTRY LEVEL JOB opportunity. And it will dog them for the rest of their working life.

Entry level jobs are there for a reason. They were never, never intended to be careers, and that is the crux of the issue IMO.

[catnipman]

“Wolf Blitzer opened the can of worms.”

I saw Blitzer try to set traps for Trump over and over again in that interview. That’s all Blitzer was doing. And the only minor hit he got was Trump not disavowing the minimum wage, saying he’d rather create jobs that paid more than $15.00/hr.

[Bryanw92]

>>Entry level jobs are there for a reason. They were never, never intended to be careers, and that is the crux of the issue IMO.

I agree completely. But when the government and economists think that giving a $25/hr manufacturing job to China and replacing it with a $7.25/hr fast food job constitutes “no net job losses”, you effectively turn these crappy little jobs into a career because the Elites say that the only career the little people need is a weekly paycheck.

$15 for a typical minimum wage job is ridiculous. But so is a grown man with a family who is forced to apply for one because the stock value needed a little bump this quarter. They use the $15 minimum wage ruse to distract us while they ship our jobs overseas and replace the rest of us with H1b holders and illegals sharing a social security number.

We claim to hate the welfare state, but every time a worker becomes an unemployed worker, the busines owner has moved a self-sufficient citizen over to the care of society and those of us left working pay the price.

[i_robot73]

Did I miss any candidate opining to ABOLISH that which (the Fed) govt has no authority...let alone the ‘min wage’?

I recall VERY FEW on the stage with the capability to do that themselves....but I fail to recall anything stated/begun along that/those path(s).

Mr. Trump opines, the media expand and twist, and everyone blows-up on everything/one BUT the ones that got us into this mess to begin (Govt).

[SunkenCiv]

• Trump say he's open to higher minimum wage, goes after Sanders supporters
• There's an even better solution to poverty than a $15 minimum wage (Basic universal income)
• Why Hillary's And Bernie's Tax Hikes On The Rich Are Doomed To Fail
• The Poor in the US Are Richer than the Middle Class in Much of Europe
• Why Is America Richer than Kazakhstan, and Why Has Estonia Surpassed Croatia?
• Trump Lays Out Day One Presidential Priorities -- Roll Back Obama Exec Orders, Knock Out ObamaCare
• Trump doubles-down on allies paying more for US protection, vows to repeal ObamaCare
• Jimmy Kimmel punks Hillary supporters by reading them parts of Trump's tax plan ...
• Bill Gates calls for higher capital gains taxes
• Mad At Corporate Tax Dodgers? Blame Democrats
• E.J. Dionne: In American politics, stupidity is the name of the game (Need to Tax the rich more)
• "The Forgotten History of the Federal Income Tax"
• The Income Tax: Root of all Evil
• Senate Dem: National debt is not 'a threat to our country'

[Mike Darancette]

When the good jobs start coming back to the US then we can talk about minimum wage increases.

[Mike Darancette]

Bringing good-paying jobs back is the place to begin

Good paying jobs will drive up the wages on low paying jobs via competition for workers.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: When the good jobs start coming back to the US then we can talk about minimum wage increases.

Actually, when we have good jobs aplenty we don’t need the minimum wage. It will take care of itself.

Switzerland and Singapore don’t have minimum wages. In fact, Switzerland just had a referendum that proposed to set a high minimum wage. It was VOTED DOWN. I don’t see their people complaining that they can’t live on what they have.

And why should the Federal government be involved in nationalizing the issue?

[Night Hides Not]

For the foreseeable future, the labor market will remain a buyer’s market, with a few exceptions, of course. With at least 90 million Americans out of the job market, there are millions more workers than available jobs.

[Rustybucket]

I see your point.

The H1B visa issue is very sensitive in my line of work. Many in my industry are degreed Ivy league engineers with many years of experience, and many are underemployed, they have exhausted unemployment. Obama has, thru sequester, ended jobs for many talented people.

In the Obamanation, aerospace companies drastically reduced manpower, laid off higher priced engineers and replaced them with lower paid, less experienced engineers from other countries, and have produced inferior quality product, which is failing, costing lives, and product, and creating safety concerns.

Often this requires rehiring US engineers to fix the problems, but then they require those engineers to TRAIN H1B visa engineers to replace them.

I wish to point out, that there are some terrific Foreign Engineers.

They will not hire US engineers in many parts of the world.

We went from In-House manufacturing, which greatly improved final end products, and lean engineering processes, and lower end costs to shipping out our manufacturing to other countries, and making us final Assemblers of our own designs.

What people do not realize is that when you take away the manufacturing, you lose experience to do those jobs, which often are learned from preceding generations on-the-job, and it will take generations to get that expertise back again.

Donald Trump knows this, the brain drain from lost manufacturing must be regained immediately to maintain our technological edge, and to excel for future development for all US products and technology.

The logical output for renewed manufacturing is the human element, we will need this labor, and will teach them well, and they will make enough to want to keep that job, and do it well. They will become the backbone of new manufacturing processes, and as the Donald says, it will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Did I miss any candidate opining to ABOLISH that which (the Fed) govt has no authority...let alone the ‘min wage’?

What should be done and what is politically possible are two different things.

When Trump opined that transgender bathrooms should be a states issue, he said the right thing. He could have said the same thing about the minimum wage and it would be just as acceptable.

[HLPhat]

"what I really do like is bring our jobs back so they're making much more than $15" --- Trump replied.

 

That sounds good, until folks see the new price tag for the pair of running shoes, iPhone, whatever... that was formerly glued together by some Communist Chinese slave laborer who made far less that $15 per hour.

"bring jobs back"  Which jobs, and why did they "leave" in the first place?

Seems to me America needs to LEAD by example again, like we did in 1969 -- When we CREATED new technology (and jobs), and then took steps to SECURE that technology for the purpose of furthering the American tradition of securing the inalienable rights of the governed - (instead of giving that technology to the Communist Chinese like Comrade Clinton and Co. did).

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo11.html

 

FREEDOM!  Go Baby GO!

[nitzy]

I need to start making a list of positions I need to support now.

Apparently, I must be in favor of single payer health insurance, men using the women’s restroom, making fun of people who pray in public and now increasing the minimum wage.

These were all opinions that would have gotten someone chastised here on FR just a couple months ago.

The times they are a changin’.

[US_MilitaryRules]

Sounds to me like he’s open to discussion of it.

[arthurus]

It does not matter what Trump says now. He really is an unknown quantity. No one of us knows what he will do in office. He has not the kind of track record that could be predictive. He has been all over the political spectrum in his pronouncements over not that many years. I maintain that he is the only rational choice out of the entire field of those who ran or are still running because he is the only one who has the ability, the force of personality and will power, to do the things that must be done to prevent the USA from disappearing as a historical force in the world and to prevent the society from becoming a bureaucratic totalitarian system. I am not all that confident that he will do what is necessary but he, again, is the only one who can. He can also turn out to be Napoleon or Mussolini and, if so, he will do it effectively, but balanced against the certainty of the Stalinist system that will be emplaced by Mrs. Clinton or the perhaps Khrushchevian Sanders, there is no choice. The maybe is a better choice than the sure thing.

[US_MilitaryRules]

Yes, he is open to it! 7.26 an hour!

[SeekAndFind]

The clever thing about Trump is this -— like Pope Francis, he can say something today that seems like he is in favor of it, but several things can happen:

1) He will walk it back the next day and his supporters will say THAT’s WHAT HE REALLY MEANT.

2) His supporters will say that he never meant what the headline says and he was mis-interpreted.

3) It’s just a negotiating tactic. He’s a businessman and he won’t show his cards until later ( sort of a variation of Pelosi’s “We will have to vote for it to see what’s in it” ).

4) No, that’s not what Trump meant ...here’s what he really meant.

Take your pick, I read variations of the above often.

[nitzy]

Hillary has said she is in favor of increasing the minimum wage. Has she screwed herself by making herself a “fixed target”?

As long as we have bumbling fools who can’t articulate a viable defense for their position and dont want to make themselves a “fixed target” we will keep lurching leftward.

Is this going to be your defense of every liberal position he takes? “Dont worry. He is just lying about what he thinks because he is scared to defend it.”

[EternalVigilance]

Indeed.

[dead]

And the Kelo decision too, you need to support that. And changing the libel laws to outlaw criticism of politicians - we're for that now too. And we support violent government crackdowns on peaceful acts of dissent too.

And people get mad when I label this a post-conservative movement.