Mitt Romney: Raise the minimum wage

last updated 8 January 2015

Moderate Mitt is back.

The former Republican presidential nominee told MSNBC's Morning Joe: "I, for instance, as you know, part company with many of the conservatives in my party on the issue of the minimum wage. I think we ought to raise it." He added: "[F]rankly, our party is all about more jobs and better pay."

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The conservative argument against the minimum wage is that it's a job killer. If businesses can't pay people less than the minimum wage, they just won't bother to hire them at all, or they'll replace them with machinery, or workers overseas. The evidence, however, suggests otherwise — but liberals who argue that minimum wage hikes create jobs by boosting consumer incomes are wrong, too. The most recent research concludes minimum wage hikes neither create nor destroy jobs.

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John Aziz is the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also an associate editor at Pieria.co.uk. Previously his work has appeared on Business Insider, Zero Hedge, and Noahpinion.

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