During Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debate, Marco Rubio articulated his disagreements with increasing the minimum wage, and explained his alternative ideas.
“If I thought that raising the minimum wage was the best way to help people increase their pay, I would be all for it. But it isn’t. In the 20th century it is disaster. If you raise the minimum wage you’re going to make people more expensive than a machine. And that means all this automation that’s replacing jobs and people right now is going to be accelerated.
“Here is the best way to raise wages. Make America the best place in America to start a business or expand an existing business. Tax reform, and regulatory reform. Bring our debt under control. Fully utilize our energy resources to reinvigorate manufacturing. Repeal and replace Obamacare. And make higher education faster and easier to access, especially vocational training. For the life of me I don’t know why we stigmatize vocational education. Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers.
“If we do that, we will be able to increase wages for millions of Americans. We will be able to leave everyone better off without making anyone worse off.”
Earlier this year, Rubio released a plan to reform higher education that focused on innovation and tried to reduce incentives for universities to raise prices.
