Bernie Sanders Just Destroyed the Case For A $15 Minimum Wage

[Geee]

Issues & Insights

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, for decades an agitator for a government-forced minimum/living wage, announced over the weekend that his campaign’s wage floor will be increased to $15 an hour. To make it work, workers’ hours will be cut. Did he just take the minimum wage issue off the table for Democrats?

In 1986, known then as the “socialist mayor of Burlington,” Vermont, Sanders campaigned on raising the state’s minimum wage while running for governor.

During one of his runs for the U.S. Senate, where he is serving his third term, Sanders lamented on his campaign website that “five states and the District of Columbia have already passed a $15 minimum wage,” and was hoping “Vermont soon joins them.”

Earlier this year, Sanders tweeted: “How is it that in the richest country in the history of the world, we can’t afford to pay everyone a living wage? It’s time to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.”

Two months ago, Sanders crashed Walmart’s shareholder meeting, where he demanded, among other things, the retailer pay its workers at least $15 an hour because it was paying “many of its employees starvation wages.”