Trump and Carson's weird wage disconnects at the GOP debate

[jberryhill]

First, as we all are assumed to know, increasing wages hurts employment.

As Ben Carson put it, every time the minimum wage goes up, African American unemployment goes up. The proof of his statement practically writes itself. When African Americans weren't paid at all, there was near 100% African American employment. I was expecting him to expressly point that out.

Trump pointed out that increasing wages hurts the economy. Then he said that illegal immigration depresses wages. Did he actually mean to say both of those things in the same debate?

[kwolf68]

1. Haha Nice catch

I never knew Trump was so pro-immigrant.

[bullwinkle428]

2. I was yelling at the screen when Trump was talking about wages in general

being too high. He was expressly making the specific argument that we need to engage in a race to the bottom to be competitive with other countries, but apparently, his supporters are too stupid to realize this.

[HassleCat]

3. He meant to say minimum wage

Of course Trump was speaking of the minimum wage. When you pay all those fast food workers and janitors $15 an hour, you can't hire as many of them. Of course, the number of employees is always as low as possible, whether they make $15 an hour, or $4 an hour. They always come up with these unverifiable examples. "Bob Roberts of Bob's Machine Shop wanted to two lathe operators, but now they make $15 an hour, so he can't hire anybody." He was going to. He really was. Now he can't. Obama's fault.

[DetlefK]

4. Those illegals are hogging all those good $5/hour jobs the Americans really want!

I mean, just think of it! You could spend 10 hours a day on a field, picking agricultural produce while basking in the sunshine! And you would get a luxurious $5/hour!!!

These are the kinds of jobs the illegals are taking from decent hard-but-not-yet-hard-enough-working Americans!

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

5. Stephen Colbert gave farm work a try and then testified before Congress

Here are the segments on his trials as a migrant farm worker:

Part 1

Part 2

Yes, these are the jobs illegal immigrants are taking away from "real" Americans!