Former CEO and Co-founder of Home Depot Bernie Marcus appeared on Fox News on Wednesday to argue that the proposed $15 minimum wage is a “killer” and should not be raised.
Marcus’s rationale was based upon a misguided idea that people who work minimum wage jobs are just kids looking for a little bit of pocket money rather than Americans in all walks of life who have bills to pay and families to support.
“I don’t think that minimum wage, that entry jobs are for a family man with two kids, I just don’t think that’s where they go”
Of course, in an ideal world, a family man with two kids would be able to work at a job where he make a sufficient amount of money to support a family, but the ideal world disappeared shortly after Marcus’s stint as a server became a distant memory. Gone are the times when a person could support themselves at a modest job in order to work through school; Gone are the times when minimum wage matched inflation; Long gone are the times when a single income was sufficient to comfortably support a family of four.
In the 21st century, nearly every person must slog through the endless monotony and stresses of a minimum wage job to work toward a better paying and more rewarding job. And yet, there are countless people who will never make it past that point; People who receive a ten cent pay raise, or no raise at all, after a full year of hard work. People who will never see anywhere close to the level of security and comfort that Marcus has existed in for his entire life.
The reality of America in 2015 is that we are woefully behind in properly compensating our workers, and billionaires like Marcus have no interest in providing a fair wage.
Watch.
