‘If it kills businesses, then the minimum wage is actually zero’: Jake pushes back on senator’s $25-an-hour proposal

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut is pushing to increase the federal minimum wage to $25.

KIRO host Jake Skorheim pushed back on Murphy’s proposal, arguing that forcing businesses to pay higher wages doesn’t help workers if it drives those businesses under.

“He’s introducing legislation to raise the minimum wage to $25 an hour. I’m all for people making as much money as they could possibly make, but if it kills the businesses where these jobs exist, then the minimum wage is actually zero,” Jake said on “The Jake and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio.

“If the job goes away, then it’s nothing,” he continued. “You can’t force these businesses to operate at a loss and to stay in business and pay you $25 an hour when they’re not making any money. They’re not going to do that. So then the job goes away.”

Senator introduces $25 an hour minimum wage act

On Thursday, Murphy introduced the Living Wage For All Act, which would require large corporate employers to implement a $25 wage floor by 2032 and other businesses by 2039.

Jake noted Washington pays the highest minimum wages in the U.S., with Tukwila paying the most at $21.65 an hour, according to the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries. He pointed to Seattle raising the pay for gig workers.

“The Seattle City Council steps in, they say, ‘We’re going to make this really expensive for people.’ So then what happens? It ends up drying up,” Jake said. “The reason I bring this up is we have this new data that’s available now. It’s been like two years now, so we have the data that shows that this ended up being a disaster.”

Murphy said at a news conference that the top 1% of Americans collectively hold 13 times the wealth of the bottom 50%.

“I don’t even know if that number is accurate, but let’s say that it’s accurate. They might be worth that. They’re not holding it,” Jake argued. “They’re not just holding on to that money and swimming in it like Scrooge McDuck.”

“It’s just disingenuous, and he knows that he’s a senator; he’s a smart guy. I assume, I mean, if you get elected as a senator, then you must, you must have some smarts in some way,” he continued. “So he probably knows that that’s not true, that they’re just holding on to that, like greedily shoving it under their mattress, so that nobody else has access to that money. That’s just not the way it works.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to “The Jake and Spike Show” weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3