CHARLES PAYNE (FOX BUSINESS HOST): The proponents of these minimum wage, or higher minimum wage need to understand a few things.
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Think about standard minimum wage. First of all, when you raise the minimum wage, the business has to raise price of their products. Guess who get hurt the most there? Poor households. Most poor households that I know have more than one person working on minimum wage. So I'd rather have two people making $13 an hour, instead of one making $15 an hour, because that's the realistic consequences. Another thing from a business point of view: If I'm a business person, right, I want to be able to reward the great workers. In this sense, you reward bad workers and you punish good workers.
BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Unless you give them a raise, and that cuts into your margin.
PAYNE: But that gets back to raising the prices though, right? So the bottom line is, if you want to talk about people being disposable, [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's] idea of a standard minimum wage snuffs out the ambitions of the person at this company who could excel. Why would I excel if the person who is not working hard gets the same pay that I get? Ironically, if they were talking about erasing these sort of standards, letting people go in and excel on their own merit, that would actually have more potential.
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PAYNE: Even in New York City, these schemes no longer allowed to tip or putting it in a communal thing. If someone gives you excellent service, they should be rewarded. All you're doing is you're rewarding minimal effort.
KILMEADE: And Charles, isn't the equation that since there's so few jobs you have to pay more for talent at any level and that's the way the economy will raise wages, as opposed to government artificially raising wages?
PAYNE: We're in the midst of that right now. We are in the midst of that right now. That's why this is almost becoming a moot conversation with respect to $15. Now, you may start hearing $19 minimum wage or whatever. But the fact of the matter is our economy is so strong right now, that the lower households, the lower-earning households are enjoying biggest raises.
