Vice President Kamala Harris is proposing a raise on the federal minimum wage if she's elected president but it would be a hefty cost.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said that the country's deficit would increase anywhere from $100 billion to $200 billion on the next 10 years if that proposal actually happened, on top of eliminating the federal taxes on tips for service workers.
Harris made both of those announcements during a recent rally in Las Vegas. The idea of no tax on tips was something that former President and current presidential opponent Donald Trump had already announced. Trump has not made a pledge to raise the federal minimum wage. The CRFB estimates that his proposal would reduce federal revenues from $150 billion to $250 billion over 10 years.
Former California State Representative and current Chief National Initiatives Officer for the Texas Public Policy Foundation Chuck DeVore says very few Americans actually work for the minimum wage
"This is an intrigue wage that's only paid to people with very little experience," he said. "The real minimum wage is zero dollars per hour as in you don't get the job."
Minimum wage jobs are most common in the fast food industry for younger people or, as already mentioned, people with little work experience. However, restaurants are having to close down in a lot of places, especially California, where the raised minimum wage has applied the hurt.
DeVore said a Harris economic plan in action for the entire U.S. would look a lot like her very liberal and failing city of San Francisco. Even the Denny's restaurant in Harris's hometown has had to shutdown because the business can't keep up with significantly bumped up minimum wage and due to the out-of-control crime scene.
"You're seeing massive amounts of unemployment where you have automation beginning to displace jobs at a rapid pace as well as some of these establishments just going out of business," said DeVore.
He called it a "recipe for disaster." Similar to another one of Harris's proposal for price controls on food and groceries.
"That's a recipe for food shortages in America of all places," DeVore said. "It is insane."
Another reason for the proposal from Harris to raise the federal minimum wage is the fact that a lot of union contract jobs across the country would be impacted by the raise. The minimum scale for the government union job is a certain percentage of the minimum wage so a raise would mean an automatic wage increase for these jobs.