DORI MONSON

Dori: Don’t raise minimum wage and stop having kids

Feb 15, 2013, 2:23 PM | Updated: 2:57 pm

Dori says President Obama is wrong to propose an increase in the minimum wage. (AP image)...

Dori says President Obama is wrong to propose an increase in the minimum wage. (AP image)

(AP image)

President Obama’s call for an increase in the minimum wage during this week’s State of the Union address continues to draw plenty of criticism. And it should come as no surprise Dori is one of those blasting the proposal.

“The whole point is you start learning the work ethic and then you work your way into being more marketable so you can command more money from your employers,” says Dori, who had more than his fair share of minimum wage jobs growing up on the mean streets of Ballard, and sometimes worked for even less.

“When it was $2.50 I went to a little grocery store in Ballard and asked for job. I got $2.00 hour,” Dori says. “I needed a job and I said ‘yeah sure, I’ll do that.’ Because it was worth it to me,” he says.

Dori is incredulous President Obama claims the minimum wage needs to go up to $9 per hour because a family with two children lives below the poverty line, mainly because he’s vehement people making minimum wage shouldn’t be having kids in the first place.

Comedian and talk show host Adam Carolla couldn’t agree more. On his podcast this week, Carolla blasted Obama’s proposal

“The best parenting of all is not (expletive)ing out the kids when you can’t afford the kids,” Carolla said. “Again, all these speeches that all these politicians make, right and left — they discuss the problem. Basically, what they’re discussing is how to take a ship that’s capsized and drain it and get it back up. But they never discuss what capsizes the ship, which is the only fucking discussion they should be having — is ballast-oriented: How did it get capsized? Not how do we un-capsize it.”

Carolla echoed Dori’s sentiment the low wage jobs are meant as starters that are supposed to propel people to better skills and wages, then they can have kids.

“The idea is — I worked at McDonald’s when I was 16. The whole idea isn’t let’s make Adam Carolla comfortable working at McDonald’s. I was like, ‘I’m getting $2.43 a hour. This place sucks (expletive.) I want out of here as fast as I can possibly do it.'”

Both Carolla and Dori call the minimum wage nothing more than “gold plated handcuffs.”

“Giving someone who has no skills an extra two bucks an hour, it makes them absolutely beholden to that politician. It’s financial handcuffs on poor people,” Dori says.

What do you think?

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