An email thread released by Wikileaks appears to reveal skepticism in Hillary Clinton’s camp about a nationwide $15 minimum wage, reflecting doubt among some liberal economists about the key progressive agenda item.
Officially, Clinton supports raising the minimum hourly wage to $12 but would sign a $15 version if it ever came to her desk. Yet, in response to an email appearing to be from John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, a key policy ally and staff were less than enthusiastic.
“Substantively, we have not supported $15 – you will get a fair number of liberal economists who will say it will lose jobs,” said Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress and close Clinton ally, in April 2015. “Politically, we are not getting any pressure to join this from our end. I leave it to you guys to judge what that means for you. But I’m not sweating it.”
Clinton’s top foreign policy advisor, Jake Sullivan, then joked later in the thread “John Podesta (and the Red Army) want to support $15!”
The emails highlight a continuing debate about how much government can raise the minimum wage before it becomes counterproductive. While liberal economists at the Economic Policy Institute and even CAP itself allowed for a $15 hourly wage (at least on the local level), others were more cautious.
When the state of New York tried to raise the minimum wage earlier this year, Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told USA Today that “it’s a much harder lift in low-wage areas” like rural regions.
And some liberal economists are outright skeptical.
Alan Krueger, a professor at Princeton University and the former chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, wrote in the New York Times last year that “$15 an hour [nationwide]…could well be counterproductive.” Harry Holzer, once the Labor Department’s chief economist during the Clinton administration, also said last year that while he was fine with a $10 an hour rate, raising it to $15 would make employing less-educated workers “much harder.” Additionally, Vox reporter Dylan Matthews tweeted this April that some “left-wing economists [are] saying off the record that $15/hr is super-dangerous, but [are] not saying that publicly.”
The doubts also reflect Clinton’s past hesitation on the issue. As Politico noted in April, she had actually argued against a $15 minimum wage for economic reasons, citing Krueger and similar scholars. However, Clinton then modified her position before the New York Democratic primary to gain more supporters from the party base and other Bernie Sanders-leaning voters.
Moreover, it was reported on Tuesday that Clinton chief strategist Joel Benenson was concerned about the wording of Clinton’s public position. In another leaked email, he wanted her to clarify the difference between helping workers associated with the Fight for $15 movement and actually backing such a wage.
“I think we have to choose our language more carefully. Reporters will not cut us any slack on this,” Benenson noted.
