Episode 318 - Minimum Wage Debunked - Why Amazon & Walmart Love The Idea
Episode Stats
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Summary
minimum wage is a myth. Minimum wage is math. Living wage is not a myth! Minimum wage should be $15 or $7.20 an hour, not $10 or $15.00 an hour.
Transcript
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30 seconds, one time for the underdog, ignition sequence start, let me see you put em up, reach
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the sky, touch the stars up above, cause it's one time for the underdog, one time for the
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I'm Patrick Biddy, your host of ITEM, and today we're going to talk about a topic you keep
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hearing about, you know, on all these political debates about minimum wage, and I'm going
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to take a complete different angle than maybe you have never seen before.
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The first thing I want to do is I want to study the history of minimum wage and what kind
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More Democrats, more Republicans, how did it work out?
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And you're going to be shell-shocked what Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan have in common when
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Pretty strange thing, but let's get right into it.
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October 1938, FDR introduces the minimum wage for the first time in America, 25 cents per
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A year later, he raises it again as a Democrat, raised it twice, Truman twice as a Democrat,
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Eisenhower once as a Republican, Kennedy twice as a Democrat, Johnson twice as a Democrat,
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Nixon once, Ford twice, Carter four times during one term, which during his time, the economy
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It cost him the re-election, Ronald Reagan gets elected, wins 49 out of 50 states, and
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Ronald Reagan never once raised minimum wage, and the economy blew up during his time.
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George Bush Sr. raised the minimum wage twice as a Republican, Clinton twice as a Democrat,
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Barack Obama is the only Democratic president that was a two-term president who raised the
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Since FDR, let me say this again, he is the only Democratic president that raised the minimum
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wage only once in two terms, and the market still recovered.
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How do these politicians come up with $15 an hour?
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And it's $15 an hour in one city, the same as $15 an hour in another city.
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First of all, $15 an hour at 40 hours a week, 52 weeks in a year, is $31,200.
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I have nearly 100 employees here that work for me.
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In the state of Texas, my minimum wage for Texas is only $7.25.
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There's only two people I pay less than $15 an hour, and they pay $13 an hour.
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I want talent to expect more, and I want a better pool of people coming here, right?
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I would never pay $7.20 because I want my employees to be able to have a good life.
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There's an organization out there called Economic Policy Institute, EPI.
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You can click on a link below, and when you go to this website, you can pick whatever city
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you want to live in to find out what is the living wage, cost of living, in that city based
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on the economy of that city, the cost of living of that city.
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You see, that I trust because it's basic math and data versus minimum wages, $15 an hour.
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And some people that are naive, they're like, oh my gosh, this guy sounds so noble.
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But in reality, whenever a politician from the left or the right gets up and just starts
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throwing numbers like that out there, you know what they're doing?
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Sounds noble, but what they're trying to say is, no one's really going to go out there
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and do a research and find out it's really living wage, not minimum wage.
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Let's take minimum wage, and let's look at the top 10 cities in America to see how much
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buying power your $100 has in these different cities.
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I got the top 10 cheapest cities in America to live in, and I got the top 10 most expensive
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In Brownsville, Texas, to go buy what you buy with $100, the buying power in Brownsville,
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you only need $85, because the cost of living there is 14.9% below the market.
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So if you spend $100 somewhere, you only need $85 over here, okay?
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So Oklahoma City's at $15.1, Jonesboro, Arkansas, $15.5, Memphis, $6.7, Knoxville, $17.8, Wichita
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You see how this goes, $25, $21.4, Convoy, $21.8.
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The buying power to match $100, you need $76 in McAllen, as you need $100.
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Meaning, if you go to dinner, the cost, transportation, everything together, you would need $100.
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$15 an hour in McAllen, Texas, you may be rolling.
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But let's look at the top 10 most expensive cities in America.
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$100 to go to a restaurant in San Diego, it's going to cost you $146.10.
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That same $100 dinner, it's going to cost you $238.60.
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The average home value in Manhattan is $871,000.
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Ten times more than the one in Brownsville, Texas.
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So $15 an hour, what does it really mean in Manhattan?
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I thought these politicians were brilliant when they would get up and say,
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That is nearly $60,000 just for rent after tax.
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To go grocery shopping in Manhattan, 40% premium.
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Transportation is 30% higher than anywhere else.
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Movie tickets for you and your family, 50% higher.
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So how do they come up with this minimum wage number?
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They're sitting there saying, what should I say from stage that's going to get the vote?
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Why don't you, you know, because there's more people that don't make a lot of money.
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You'll come across as noble and you care for people.
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We're going to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, 15 bucks an hour over the next
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Who's to really benefit if we raise the minimum wage?
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You know how a lot of times you'll hear politicians say things like, Walmart, it's unfair what
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They're putting small business owners out of business.
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Bobby's market went out of business because of Walmart and Amazon.
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Who can really afford to pay higher wages if they were to raise the minimum wage?
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He can't afford to raise the minimum wage because he's out of business.
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Every single time they raise the minimum wage, just so you know, Amazon, Walmart, Apple,
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Google, all these guys are sitting there saying, awesome, keep doing it.
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Because all these small business owners are going to go out of business and we get them
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Because we can afford to raise because all we're going to do is what?
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So don't be fooled by it next time when politicians say $15 for the people.
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$15 an hour is really for the big corporations.
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I'm not telling you anything that sounds out of the ordinary.
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This is what I would like to see our leaders, politicians, people running, talk about more.
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What do I need to do to increase my market value?
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The word I would like to hold our politicians that are running for office accountable is
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So now you're asking, well Pat, I want to increase my market value.
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When it comes down to skill set, you're going to be in four different categories.
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Number two, only a few people can do what you do.
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You're in the top 1%, which means you get paid good money.
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Now, a lot of people would like to get paid what the top 1% gets paid, or the best gets
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A lot of nights of working late, studying, trying to figure out what you're doing.
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So the top 1% gets paid what they get paid, because they're willing to do what a few and
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By the way, say you come to a restaurant for you and your husband, you and your wife,
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Are you okay if I'm winging the chicken, and it's my first day making chicken, or prime rib?
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I don't know how to really make a bone and rib eye medium.
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I don't really know how long I should put it, flip it, seasoning.
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Are you okay spending $200 for an amateur like me?
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If you increase, you don't ever worry about things like this, because in the marketplace,
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But if you become a school teacher teaching fine arts, don't expect to make a quarter million
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But if you want to try to do something that's going to make good money for you, you've got
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to look at industries that you can use your talents, but it's got a bigger upside.
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Let me explain what I mean by the passion drug.
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A lot of these motivational speakers, online people, chase your passion.
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If you can do this with this, and if, listen, all good.
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I have a complete different mindset with passion.
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To me, if you're 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, you've got to have a game plan.
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There's four C's you ought to go through in life.
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Whoever tells you money doesn't matter, they are probably single with no kids, never been
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The number one topic husband and wife argue wants to have kids is money.
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So if you're single right now with no kids, you better realize you go on this hot date
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of yours with your girl, and she looks amazing, and you look hot.
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Oh, well, my mom makes money, and they have to pay for it, and they covered it.
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The next 20 from 40 to 60, you can be creative, because now you have flexibility.
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And when you talk about passion, you have no idea how many things I'm passionate about.
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But I can do it within my vision of the company I'm building.
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If you can find a company that you can work with internally, work your butt off, go above
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everybody else, ask for a piece of the company, profit sharing, equity, and you can be part
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of somebody you see that's running hard and somebody that, you know, that person's got
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They're like, I can just hang on to this person's hotel and make a lot of money.
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So many times people want to start their own business.
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I tell them, why don't you go work with somebody and get a piece of what they're doing and ask
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Well, you know, they've told me if I work for LAUSD for 10 years, I get this tenure benefit
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and they can't ever fire me and I'm just locked in, but you're only making 47 grand a year.
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Don't fall for this tenure trap deal that's going to make a difference in your life at
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Tenure trap is the same trap as minimum wage trap.
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Number seven, value, value, value, value, value, value.
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The more value you bring to the world, the more people want to do for you.
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So the more value you bring, market value goes up.
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And last but not least, connections in your community.
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Listen, when you build a community and you have the right connections, that attracts money
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If you're rubbing elbows with the right people, somehow, someway, you end up doing business
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Just today, I was speaking to a guy that runs one of the biggest speaking companies, meaning
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he works with all these guys that are speakers, right?
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And we started going through a list of people and speakers.
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And he gave me this name and that name and this name.
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He was in the community when they started a company and he was a guy that was there for
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Get in the right community and connections and stick around, especially if the people
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And by the way, if you haven't already subscribed to Valuetainment on iTunes, please do so.
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And if you have any questions for me that you may have, you can always find me on Snapchat,
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