Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly downplayed the impact of raising the minimum wage on his show recently, claiming only an “infinitesimal” number of people would be impacted. He ignored the 27.8 million Americans that would benefit from a raise in the minimum wage.
During the January 20 State of the Union address, President Obama urged members of Congress to raise the minimum wage, saying those “to who still refuse to raise the minimum wage, I say this: If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, go try it.”
On the January 21 edition of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly and network contributor Eric Shawn tried to undermine President Obama’s minimum wage initiative, and diminished the number of Americans that would be impacted by raising the minimum wage.
O’Reilly asserted that only “a very low number” of people make “minimum wage anyways,” claiming that the number of people who would be impacted by the change would be “infinitesimal” and saying Obama has been “misleading everybody” by insisting a raise would have a big effect:
However, according to the Economic Policy Institute, raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour by 2016 would “raise the wages of 27.8 million workers.”
According to a Congressional Budget Office report, the “ripple effect” of raising the minimum wage would benefit 16.5 million workers, and would lift nearly one million people out of poverty.
OK, Fine. 