Fox News' Neil Cavuto is one of the biggest opponents against raising the minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour. Today, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed it in law and Cavuto had on one of the founders of the Fight For $15 movement, Naquasia LeGrand to discuss the horrible consequences that may fall upon the poors if these wages hikes go up too fast and spread across the country.
I have to give Legrand credit because Cavuto tried to rattle her throughout the entire interview but she stood strong.
Neil was almost comical trying to make the case that he's worried about the poors surviving these raise hikes.
Cavuto asked her if she found it " a little bit too much, too fast," and that a lot of people are going to lose their jobs."
Naquasia responded by saying,"This is great that it's happening fast." She contended that these big corporations are making huge profits off the backs of the low paid workers and they can well afford these increases.
Cavuto asked her if she would pay more for fast food if it paid a higher minimum wage. She explained that since she worked for a fast food chain and could barely pay for a #1 meal as it was, and yes, she needs more money to put back into the economy.
Then Neil used a complete Trojan Horse argument next when he said that "some estimates" say that a Big Mac could be raised from $3.99 to $5.50 to support a $15 min wage.
"Not right away, in stages but that it would and that a lot of people who might not work in fast food would say, forget that, I'll go somewhere else."
Cavuto offers up no proof that prices would rise so high and used the "estimates," canard, but in reality, where would people go to get cheaper food, Neil?
She said that prices go up every day in the world except worker wages.
Then Cavuto fearmongered that robots and automated kiosks will take your jobs because of these minimum wage hikes..I kid you not.
Naquasia said, "Not at all. McDonald's has been around a long time and if they didn't want people in their stores, they would have replaced us with robots."
When Cavuto worried that small mom and pop stores that aren't as big as McDonald's might not been able to afford these hikes, (where are they, Neil?) she told him that polls conducted by Republicans showed that 80% of businesses agreed with the wage hikes.
Here's the poll she was talking about and it was done by Frank Luntz:
The survey of 1,000 business executives across the country was conducted byLuntzGlobal, the firm run by Republican pollster Frank Luntz, and obtained by a liberal watchdog group called the Center for Media and Democracy. (The slide deck is here, and the full questionnaire is here.) Among the most interesting findings: 80 percent of respondents said they supported raising their state's minimum wage, while only eight percent opposed it.
"That’s where it’s undeniable that they support the increase,” LuntzGlobal managing director David Merritt told state chamber executives in a webinar describing the results, noting that it squares with other polling they’ve done. “And this is universal. If you’re fighting against a minimum wage increase, you’re fighting an uphill battle, because most Americans, even most Republicans, are okay with raising the minimum wage.”