Labor Secretary Tom Perez isn’t mincing words when it comes to describing the U.S. federal minimum wage.
“I mean, we suck … We really do,” Perez said of the $7.25 minimum hourly wage, one of the lowest among developed nations.
Perez’s remarks, delivered at a Bloomberg News event and reported by the publication, were delivered in response to Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s comment Monday at a Chamber of Commerce event that he was “tired of hearing about the minimum wage.”
“Chris Christie’s got his head in the sand if he’s getting tired about the minimum wage,” said Perez, who has recently conducted a tour across the U.S. meeting with minimum wage workers. The tour involved talking to minimum wage workers in New Jersey who, he said, need a legislated pay raise.
Perez and other Democrats have made raising the minimum wage a central feature of their domestic economic agenda and also their campaign trail pitch. President Obama favors raising the federal minimum to $10.10 and indexing it to inflation.
That effort has stalled amid opposition from congressional Republicans, who have warned that raising the minimum wage would cost jobs. Perez has said that Obama has instructed him to work with state and local lawmakers to raise the minimum wage at lower levels of government while the federal minimum wage remains unchanged.
Perez, who has held the top spot at the Labor Department since last summer, is considered a top candidate to replace Eric Holder as attorney general after Holder steps down.
