Boortz: Adults earning minimum wage are "incompetent", "ignorant", "stupid", "worthless," and "pathetic"

Summary: Neal Boortz asked his audience, "[H]ow incompetent, how ignorant, how worthless is an adult that can't earn more than the minimum wage?" Boortz also falsely claimed that "most of the people that earn [the] minimum wage are teenagers."

On the August 3 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, host Neal Boortz asked his audience, "[H]ow incompetent, how ignorant, how worthless is an adult that can't earn more than the minimum wage?" Boortz continued: "You have to really, really, really be a pretty pathetic human being to not be able to earn more than ... the minimum wage."

Additionally, Boortz falsely claimed that "most of the people that earn [the] minimum wage are teenagers." In fact, "about one-fourth of workers earning at or below the minimum wage were age 16-19" in 2005, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

From the August 3 broadcast of Cox Radio Syndication's The Neal Boortz Show:

BOORTZ: I want you to think about this, folks. You know, most of the people that earn minimum wage are teenagers. They're in the job market for a short period of time, they're learning some job skills, they're learning workplace skills. Most of the people who aren't teenagers that have a minimum-wage job, it lasts about three to four months, and they're off making more money. I want you to think for think for a moment of how incompetent and stupid and worthless, how -- that's right, I used those words -- how incompetent, how ignorant, how worthless is an adult that can't earn more than the minimum wage? You have to really, really, really be a pretty pathetic human being to not be able to earn more than the human wage. Uh -- human, the minimum wage.

—M.S.