GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson wants to raise the minimum wage. Among his Republican peers already running for the nation’s highest office — former Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Sens. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio — the retired neurosurgeon is alone in support of raising the minimum wage.
Carson has not specified exactly what the federal minimum wage should be, and instead told CNBC, “I think, probably, it should be higher than now.”
“In several states you can get as much or more on government assistance as you can by working on a minimum wage job,” Carson said. “I don’t necessarily blame people for saying, ‘Look, I can stay home and make this money, or I can go and work this little chicken job that doesn’t have many benefits.'”
In announcing his candidacy earlier this week, Carson said he did not intend to run as a politician. But his support for the wage hike is certainly not shared by many in the Tea Party movement, who count as some of Carson’s most vocal supporters. While he is in lockstep with the conservative base of the GOP on many other issues regarding government intervention — he wants to abolish the IRS, for example — he is unlikely to find allies on this issue among those whose votes could help him become the Republican nominee in 2016.
