The country protested this week to raise the minimum wage. Theyre looking for 15 an hour. Should the minimum wage be increased . Call us and tell you what you think on the democratic line, 202 5853880. The republican line at 202 5853881. Independent line at 202 5853882. A special line we set up this morning for minimumwage workers 3. 202 585388 you can also join the conversation on social media. Or send us an email. Our first guest this morning is steve jamison, a reporter for the huffington post. Good morning to you. Caller good morning. Of these were at one fast food worker protests in South Carolina earlier this week. Tell us what you saw and what it was all about. Caller i went to charleston, South Carolina. This was about workers who were demanding 15 an hour. Its a living wage. And union recognition. I followed about two dozen workers. Many of whom were declaring oneday strikes. Others had the day off and joined the protest and they took part in civil disobedience. They protested alongside the road ended up blocking the freeway in charleston. They were all cited for disorderly conduct. That u tweeted saying what is the concern about this not necessarily being a real protest or real argument . Caller this is a union backed movement. The Service Employees international, a Union Representing workers in the lowwage service industries. A lot of people have called these dismissed them as union orchestrated stunts. Unions, orchestrated by in concert with local community groups. When you go out to these things, you do see that these are workers who are there. Many of them are on oneday strikes. I take issue when people are saying this isnt really worker generated. I do think it is want to go out there and see what is going on on the ground level. Host what was different about this weeks protest and where the campaign is now . Ir the size and scope was in charleston, South Carolina. I wanted to go there its an interesting place. One year ago, this sort of thing was happening in big places like new york city and chicago and los angeles. That make sense because there is a lot of organized labor infrastructure there. Charleston is a different type of place and its notable that these things are happening in places like that and places like rochester, new york and kansas city. It is spreading. Its important to keep in mind, these are pretty small. It was a couple dozen workers. Minority strikes, you might call them. They dont really disrupt business the way we think of traditional strikes. Not enough to shut down a store. This is more about drawing attention to the cause and growing the numbers in the ranks of workers who will join them. Over the recent months, they have had success in doing that. Host do you think they had enough momentum or garnered enough interest to push forward any action on capitol hill . Caller it is harder to get enough action to do anything on capitol hill. You really cant dispute that its had an effect in terms of legislation on the city and state level. We have seen a lot of minimum wages go through. That willnimum wage go into effect in seattle. Partumber 15 is probably a of direct reaction to this movement. Change atbeen some city and state level. As far as capitol hill goes, republicans dont have much appetite right now to take up the minimum wage bill. It probably wont happen this year, but it is becoming a campaign issue. Host you mentioned the cities and states taking on this issue. Is this really a campaign thats cured more at local initiatives . How many jurisdictions have we seen take on the minimum wage issue locally . Caller i cant give a firm number on how many cities and states. We saw a whole bunch of States New York state, california, illinois. They have all recently raised their minimum wages. D. C. Ust did the same in it is really widespread. And whenat the numbers you ask the public, more than two thirds of them are going to say they support raising the minimum wage. Outside of capitol hill, there tends to be more support for raising the minimum wage. When you look at these protests, people generally have a lot of sympathy for somebody working and making 7. 25 an hour. In South Carolina, there is not a state minimum wage higher than the federal one. To a worker who made more than 7. 50 an hour. Most of them are earning right around the minimum wage. What about the argument that raising the minimum wage would increase unemployment because employers would not be able to employ as many people because they are paying their existing workers more . Caller this is the discussion we have whenever we talk about raising the minimum wage. Hadas a discussion that was during the Bush Administration and clinton administration. I understand those concerns and franchisees make up the most of those restaurants. Concern thatthe you raise labor costs, that will come out of somewhere. Smaller orts will be you raise prices. Its a legitimate concern. At the same time, it only goes in one direction. It only goes up. Weve had it for 70 years now. It has never crashed the economy when its gone up. Businesses find a way to withstand the rays. Raise. Stand the host thanks for joining us this morning. He mentioned the Popular Support for raising the minimum wage. Cnn produced a poll that shows strong support for raising the minimum wage. 71 of those surveyed favor raising the federal minimum wage. There were former to 35 total 435who were polled thei total people who were polled here. ,ur first call is from tom independent from vermont. Good morning. Caller good morning. We need to bring the minimum wage up to 50 an hour 15 an hour so it has some reflection on the cost of living increases we have all felt over the years. Look at gasoline. Andas quadrupled in price it didnt bankrupt any businesses, supposedly. The people that are working for afford ge now cant and they are all basically collecting welfare as well. 80 of the people i work with that are making nine dollars an hour were still on welfare. Host what industry do you work in . Caller i did work in the road construction. Companiesing is, the that are doing federal inernment work, one company particular was paying everybody nine dollars an hour and they were doing federal work and the federal prevailing wage was supposed to be 18 an hour. We got a hold of the Government People and nobody would do anything about finally, after six months, the company was there to pay the people backpay at the higher rate. I spent probably four months working with the government, trying to get them to enforce the davisbacon act. It was nothing but a big runaround. The people in government are totally incompetent. Is bill onext caller the democratic line from cleveland, ohio. Hi. Er i dont believe the minimum wage should be increased. I think the workers should get a pay raise. The way we would do this is to a sector in the american economy. Worku have the people who and they together come equally own the enterprise they work in, that would probably go much further in solving this wage issue that raising the minimum wage. Host more of a Profit Sharing plan . Caller exactly. Go with the coop sector. Have the people who work in enterprises equally on them. Equally own them. They can set their own wages to market demands. I think the problem is structural more than trying to legislate pay. This is an avenue that the nations should consider. Host our next caller is paul on the republican line from orlando, florida. Caller good morning, cspan. First of all, the minimum wage was never meant to raise a family of quattro. Our. Family of f should it be raised . Yeah. Im not smart enough to know what the equilibrium is on that. Let me throw this out to you folks. Wage toise the minimum 50. Ok, lets do it. 215. Lets raise the minimum wage to 15 a year. You give up your staff cards, you know longer qualify for the earned income tax credit, you no longer get free obamacare. Those people who want a 15 an hour minimum wage, are they willing to give up the government benefits that they for more personal responsibility . I would love to hear how other people will answer that question. Another great topic. Host that is paul on the republican line. We have some tweets as well. The minimum wage was also the topic of Vice President bidens comments this week in his weekly address. He spoke about the need to bo t the economy by raising the minimum wage. [video clip] it is time for us to invest in Educational Opportunity to guarantee that we have the most highly Skilled Workforce in the world. Jobs,x out of every 10 some Education Beyond High School will be required. It is long past due to increased the minimum wage. It will bring millions of families out of property and produce a Ripple Effect that boosts wages or middleclass and spurs Economic Growth for the United States of america. Things, these and other wages will go up and we will increase the gross to met the product of the United States. We know how to do this. The Gross Domestic Product of the United States. It is the way we used to do business and we can do it again. All the middle class in this country wants is a chance. No guarantee, just a chance. Host should the u. S. Raise the minimum wage . That is the question we are posing to you today. You can call us and let us know what you think. Democratic line at 202 5853880. Republicans can call 202 5853881. Call 202 s can 5853882. If you are a minimumwage worker, you can call us on a special line at 202 5853883. You can find this on social media. Find us on social media. Or send us an email. We are taking your calls right now. Our next one is on the independent line. Jackie from salisbury, maryland. Caller thank you for taking my call. Thatld like to point out raising the minimum wage will probably raise the cost of the products. That will decrease frivolous spending. We dont need to buy fast food. The previous caller stated that the increase in gas prices did not affect the economy. We have to by gas. We didnt have a choice. Fast food, we do have a choice. Its too expensive, we wont buy it. I agree with the previous caller about personal responsibility. You can get an increased minimum wage and continue to get government entitlements. Jackie from salisbury, maryland on the independent line. Our next caller is jim on the independent line from North Carolina. You are a minimum wage worker. Caller yes, my wife and i work at mcdonalds. Industry in the coal and we got laid off because of stiffer penalties and more reducedons and we were to me having to work mcdonalds. Now, we are living in a motel and we can barely say afloat. We are living paycheck to paycheck. Host did you participate in the protests this week . Caller no. We cant afford to miss a days work. Host how are you staying afloat . Cans on daysk up off or in the evenings. I do odd jobs to keep us going. It is hard to pay your rent, and buy groceries because you cant get Food Assistance because you make too much to qualify or you get too little, so why bother . You are just out more than you are making. You just cant do it on minimum wage. Host do you receive any government assistance at all . Caller we signed up on food stamps and we could not afford tomake the trip back to town sign up for them because we couldnt afford to miss work. We can have that option. We cant have that option. Host previous callers have suggested that it would mean less support from government assistance or food stamp programs and obamacare. Would you be willing to make that tradeoff . Caller yeah. If i can get more on the dollar, im not going to go sign up on food stamps or any kind of government assistance. I like to stand on my own two feet. I dont like asking for help from the government or nothing. Host jim, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts this morning. Fromup is eric calling florida on the independent line. Caller i would like to say thank you for taking my call. This is really a nobrainer. Forever. Bout this we talk about legislation to pass this or past that. If we empower the people at the , the purchasing power is increased. Your previous caller talked about, he doesnt want to get these benefits. We talk about government spending. We want to keep the government costs down. If we would empower these people , it seems like a nobrainer we would increase productivity in this country. We would pick up a substantial amount of people a previous caller mentioned this concept of ownership of associates. With lowes, home depot, walmart, they call them associate firms. Yet, they are still making barely livable wages. , we are always alluding to this is just the minimum wage workers. We are all gauged upon that minimum wage. A College Graduate making substantially lower wages than he would be getting at a higher rate. It affects everybody throughout the industry. There are a lot of people in this country who work for not a livable wage. They are dependent on government programs. This is a nobrainer. We want more guys going out and buying a yacht or 2000 people going out and buying fishing boats . Why do we have such a debate in this country about the minimum wage . Host eric from florida on the democratic line. On twitter we are back to your phone calls now with tommy from oklahoma on the democratic line. He is making the minimum wage. By a majorasnt void oil company employed by a Major Oil Company. I had retirement. Im supposed to live on 300 a month. 65 just a little below the i worked at a motel at the minimum wage for almost as coyears. Years. Almost two now, i have no money in the bank and know nothing. My car blew up. No money in the bank and no nothing. They would keep me under 40 hours a week. I could not afford to buy a car to try to find a better job because i would have to go out of town to do homework or whatever. Jobs, theyum wage try to get around even paying the minimum wage to motel workers. Its a scam that these hotel owners do. They try to get you to sign a contract and then they work you under the minimum wage. People who own businesses that do this to people. Five years of college. Im not stupid. When youwas it were making the minimum wage . Caller i saved every penny i could to get a car so i could better myself. The money does not go far. Almost ast job two years ago. Everything is gone. I didnt gamble or drink. I dont have any vices. It is very hard to make ends meet. You can have a better job unless you have a car and you cant buy. Car on 7. 25 an hour and live host now, you are unemployed. How are you making ends meet . Caller i have the papers to go get food stamps on monday. 300 a month from a Major Oil Company for 30 years surface. 30 years service. Im going to job interviews. Im going to have to get food stamps. Im not going to be able to pay the 250 it takes to park my motorhome in the trailer park. Thats how it is for a senior that needs to get back in the workforce. I used to drive a truck. They dont want to hire you. Ithink she is a bit old want people to know these things because once you get down come its hard to get back up. Thats want to get down, its hard to get back up. Host next call is devon from greensboro, North Carolina. Republican line. Caller my comment was, there is more than enough for everybody in america. , Natural Resources resources and money. Without either or, we can function. We cant function. The Natural Resources will still be around. System backs in the 60s, people were making 10 an hour in entrylevel jobs. After years of greed and , people have gotten away from what is really going on. Says, we lost 1 trillion and we dont know where it went. Hillary clinton leads the secretary of state office and we dont know where the funds went. Past have in the spent trillions of dollars, and we dont know where it goes. There are a couple hundred people who are spending trillions of dollars. We had to get back to by the people for the people. Agriculture and economic sector. S not going anywhere science has given us ways to engineer food. Technology has given us ways to store energy. We are selling hamburgers for a dollar. Host the star tribune has this report. Raised its bill for custom or is with a minimum wage fee. , wewner of the cafe said are shocked at whats going on. We are appalled at the response eared we are doing what we have. O do to protect the employees. We are taking your calls today and wondering whether or not you think the country should raise the minimum wage. You can call us on the democratic line at 202 5853880. Republican line at 202 5853881. Independent line at 202 5853882. Or, for minimum wage workers, 202 5853883. Facebook, twitter, on or send us an email. Eff from South Carolina. Caller im calling in support of raising the minimum wage. I make much more than that, but ive listened to your callers. What of the callers mentioned theireople that did have minimum wage raised, they would lose government assistance. Thats what this whole thing is about. To get people off government assistance so they can support themselves. You talk to a couple people who are making the minimum wage were very little each month and my heart goes out to them. These are people who are of bolts, Senior Citizens and theyenior citizens are having to resort to these lower skill, minimum wage jobs. ,heir minimum wages were raised mine would not have to be raised. That would raise their standard of living and they could get off Government Support and everybody would be winning in that situation. Journal the wall street , David Newmark writes this article or oped. Who really gets the minimum wage . Meanwhile, in the hill, a law professor writes in support of , arguing theage late workers a our next caller is dorothy, calling from louisiana on the democratic line. I believe you make the minimum wage . Caller yes, i do. Host tell me about your situation. Caller im 71 years old. Im trying to raise a 13yearold grandson. I had to go back and take a job and the job pays the minimum wage. I dont get subsidized housing. Allersen t