February, 16 2021, 11:00pm EDT
Patriotic Millionaires on Romney/Cotton Minimum Wage Plan: Anything Less than $15 is Unacceptable
"This comes off as a transparently cynical ploy to keep the minimum wage depressed while also targeting undocumented workers"
WASHINGTON
Yesterday, Senators Mitt Romney and Tom Cotton announced that they were planning to introduce a bill to raise the minimum wage to an unspecified number while "ensuring businesses cannot hire illegal immigrants."
In response, Morris Pearl, the Chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, former managing director of BlackRock, Inc., and author of the upcoming book Tax the Rich, issued the following statement:
"Anything less than $15 is unacceptable and inadequate, and any attempt to introduce a bill with a lower amount should be seen for what it is: fighting for lower wages for American workers. Romney and Cotton see where the political winds are blowing and recognize that an increase to the minimum wage is inevitable, so they want to be on the right side of things while also trying to keep wages down. I'd love to be proven wrong when they release further details, but based on what we know now, this comes off as a transparently cynical ploy to keep the minimum wage depressed while also targeting undocumented workers.
If they are truly concerned about America's small businesses, they should be working on what our businesses really need: consumers who make enough money to live on. They can create those consumers by lifting the minimum wage to $15, giving 27 million Americans a raise."
For more information or for interview requests, email Sam Quigley at Sam@patrioticmillionaires.org.
The Patriotic Millionaires is a group of high-net worth Americans who share a profound concern about the destabilizing level of inequality in America. Our work centers on the two things that matter most in a capitalist democracy: power and money. Our goal is to ensure that the country's political economy is structured to meet the needs of regular Americans, rather than just millionaires. We focus on three "first" principles: a highly progressive tax system, a livable minimum wage, and equal political representation for all citizens.
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