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Rashida Tlaib Calls For $20 Federal Minimum Wage After CBO Warns Even $15 Could Kill Millions Of Jobs

   DailyWire.com

Earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warned that a minimum wage hike to $15 per hour by 2025 could put up to 3.7 million Americans out of work. The damning report, however, did not deter radical Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) from calling for an even higher — and therefore more damaging — federal minimum wage of $20 per hour.

“It’s just not enough to support or families,” Tlaib said of jobs that are supplemented by patrons’ tips.

“Big fights like this one, $15. By the way, when we started it, it should have been $15,” the freshman congresswoman continued. “Now I think it should be $20 … It should be $20 an hour. $18-20 an hour.”

“They say all this is gonna raise the cost,” she added. “But I could tell you, milk has gone up, eggs has gone up, everything has gone up, the cost of food has gone up, the cost of a lot of things we need has gone up already.”

Tlaib made the remarks last week at an event for One Fair Wage, an organization that lobbies for a higher federal minimum tipped wage, according to The Washington Free Beacon.

The CBO report, released two weeks ago, warned that a $15 minimum wage hike could put between 1.3 – 3.7 million people out of work:

In an average week in 2025, the $15 option would boost the wages of 17 million workers who would otherwise earn less than $15 per hour. Another 10 million workers otherwise earning slightly more than $15 per hour might see their wages rise as well. But 1.3 million other workers would become jobless, according to CBO’s median estimate. There is a two-thirds chance that the change in employment would be between about zero and a decrease of 3.7 million workers. The number of people with annual income below the poverty threshold in 2025 would fall by 1.3 million.

“This report confirms what we already knew about House Democrats’ Raise the Wage Act,” said Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR), according to The New York Times.

Moreover, a study conducted on the minimum wage in California’s restaurant industry by the Center for Economic Forecasting and Development (CEFD) at the University of California-Riverside School of Business showcased major drawbacks to such a hike: “[T]he authors write that due to the California law that will see the state’s minimum wage increase to $15/hour by 2022, individuals who are working minimum-wage jobs will indeed see some wage growth. However, they also write that the increased minimum wage might have a warping effect on the economy, leading employers to reduce hours in order to cut costs, and providing ‘fewer job opportunities’ for young or low-skill individuals entering the workforce,” reported The Daily Wire’s Frank Camp.

Economists also overwhelmingly reject a $15 minimum wage mandate. “According to a new survey of 197 working economists conducted in February, 74% oppose raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and almost half (43%) think that the federal minimum wage should be eliminated altogether,” The Daily Wire’s Hank Berrien reported, noting that “88% of economists thought an acceptable federal minimum wage should be less than $15; 66% agreed that an appropriate federal minimum wage would be $10 an hour or less. … 84% thought a $15 minimum wage would negatively affect youth employment; 77% believed that the minimum wage hike would have a negative impact on the number of jobs available.”

The report added that “only a tiny percentage of the economists (6%) surveyed thought a $15 minimum wage would efficiently target poverty.”

But it goes beyond reports and statistics. Over the weekend, socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) — a proponent of the $15 minimum wage mandate — felt the economic burn of his own policy and is now (predictably) cutting his campaign staffers’ hours to maintain the wage hike.

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