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Labor Secretary Perez embarrassed by minimum wage; 'Christie has his head in the sand'

United States Secretary of Labor: “I mean, we suck. We really do.”

By JC Sevcik
U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez. (UPI/T.J. Kirkpatrick/Pool)
U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez. (UPI/T.J. Kirkpatrick/Pool) | License Photo

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Labor Secretary Tom Perez criticized New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and like-minded Republicans who oppose an increase to the minimum wage.

"Chris Christie's got his head in the sand if he's getting tired about the minimum wage," Perez said at a Washington event hosted by Bloomberg News.

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Perez targeted Christie specifically in response to comments the Republican governor of New Jersey made Oct. 21 at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event.

"I'm tired of hearing about the minimum wage. I really am," Christie said Tuesday. "I don't think there's a mother or father who's sitting around a kitchen table in America tonight saying, 'You know honey, if our son or daughter could just make a higher minimum wage, my God, all our dreams would be realized.' Is that what parents aspire to for their children?"

"All the Democrats and the president want to talk about is minimum wage," Christie said Thursday in response to Perez. "The reason they want to do that is because they have not had the kind of growth in this country that we should be having in terms of wages and better jobs."

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"Chris Christie needs to talk to his economists, who will tell him that 70 percent of GDP growth is consumption," Perez said.

"I've met with minimum-wage workers in New Jersey," Perez said. "I've met with folks who -- the only raise they got, they're baggage handlers at Newark Airport -- and the only raise they got was when the voters increased the minimum wage."

The Obama administration and some Democrats in Congress have been pushing to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 but have met with obstinate resistance from Republicans like Christie and House Speaker John Boehner, who has said his chamber won't consider an increase.

The United States ranks 25th out of the 28 OECD countries that share wage data when the wage floor is measured as a share of a country's average wages, at 37 percent.

"I mean, we suck. We really do," Perez said of the status, which he called embarrassing.

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