Commentary: ‘Dirty Jobs’ Star Mike Rowe Just Totally Debunked the Argument for a $15 Minimum Wage

Mike Rowe

Mike Rowe knows the value of hard work. The former star of “Dirty Jobs” gained notoriety for the Discovery Channel program, which featured him going undercover at some of the toughest and grossest jobs imaginable. From cleaning bat poop to testing shark suits by jumping into a shark feeding frenzy, Rowe has more appreciation than most for the dignity of labor.

So, it’s worth taking the actor’s recent warning on the perils of minimum wage hikes seriously.

Advocates for a federal $15 minimum wage argue that it’s the bare minimum that workers deserve and that more than doubling the mandated wage nationwide would uplift workers who are struggling to get by. Critics often point out that minimum wage hikes cause unemployment.

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After Stinging Loss, Democrats Plot How to Slip $15 Minimum Wage into Next ‘Must-Pass’ Bill

Progressive House Democrats are rapidly searching for ways to revive the $15 minimum wage increase after a stinging loss in the passage of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus law.

Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus want the $15 minimum wage hike to apply to all workers, including those who receive tips such as restaurant servers.

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Georgia Small Businessman Discusses How a $15 Minimum Wage Would Impact His Frozen Yogurt Shop

Some lawmakers’ push to raise the national minimum wage to $15 an hour is “truly maddening,” small business owner Stuart Hornsby says. 

Hornsby owns a frozen yogurt shop, a business he built from the ground up in 2013, in a small city in northwest Georgia.

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CBO: $15 Minimum Wage Would Lead to 1.4 Million Lost Jobs, Impacting Young, Less Educated the Most

Unemployment line

A $15 minimum wage would result in 1.4 million jobs lost and disproportionately hurt younger workers and those with less education, a new Congressional Budget Office report says.

President Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and other Democrats have proposed raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, more than double the current federal minimum of $7.25 an hour.

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