In a tweet voicing his opposition to raising the national minimum wage to $15 an hour, Republican South Dakota Senator John Thune said he made $6 an hour working at a restaurant as a "kid." Adjusted for modern inflation, that would be $24 an hour today.
Congressional Republicans have largely opposed the Democratic proposal to raise the minimum wage. They argue a wage hike will harm small businesses who have already been economically harmed during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. "I started working by bussing tables at the Star Family Restaurant for $1/hour & slowly moved up to cook the big leagues for a kid like me to earn $6/hour," Thune wrote in a Wednesday evening tweet. "Businesses in small towns survive on narrow margins. Mandating a $15 minimum wage would put many of them out of business."
It's unclear which years Thune worked at the restaurant in his hometown of Murdo, South Dakota, where he attended high school. However, Thune was born in 1961. Assuming he was earning $6 an hour by the time he was 17the last year one is still considered a non-adult under the national age of consent, which is 18the year would have been 1978.
A $6 an hour wage in 1978, adjusted to modern inflation rates, would equal $24.07 an hour in 2021. A person making $24.07 an hour, working 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year would earn over $50,000 annually before taxes.
A person working the same hours and earning the Democratic-proposed wage of $15 an hour would earn just over $31,200 a year, before taxes. A person working the same hours and earning the current national minimum wage of $7.25 an hour would earn just over $15,080 a year, before taxes. The Department of Health and Human Services lists the poverty line for a single-person household in the contiguous 48 states and District of Columbia is $12,880 per year.
On Monday, Republican Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Mitt Romney of Utah introduced a $10 national minimum wage plan. It is called the Higher Wages for American Workers Act. The GOP plan would gradually raise the federal minimum wage from its current rate of $7.25 an hour to $10 an hour by 2025. A person making the GOP-proposed wage of $10 an hour, working 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year would earn over $20,800 annually before taxes
The plan was criticized by Democratic legislators and others for being lower than the minimum wage in Cotton's home state$11 an hour. Romney and Cotton's plan would only raise wages for around 3 percent of American workers, compared to 21.2 percent of workers under the Democratic proposal, according to an analysis published Wednesday by the Economic Policy Institute.
You know, fuck our kids and fellow Americans for wanting to have a living wage