Fred DeLuca Quotes

When we lift the wage floor, it not only betters the lives of those whose wages are directly affected, it also lifts the economy as a whole.

The national minimum wage has not been increased in 9 years. By year's end, 21 States across America will have a minimum wage exceeding the Federal minimum wage.

If the opponents of an increase in the minimum wage were correct, then every time you fly to Seattle, you've got to bring a bagged lunch because there shouldn't be any restaurants because they should have all have gone out of business as a result of raising the minimum wage.

The concept of minimum wage is crazy, if you really stop to think about it. If $8 an hour seems right, why not $20 an hour? If it's coming by order of the government, why stop at any level? Why not just say everyone should get what Gates gets?

The state of Alaska has a minimum wage which is higher than the federal level because our state leaders have made that determination.

The minimum wage now in our country, I think we've set that, so there are a lot of people have benefited from it in our country, but I think we ought to review how much it ought to be, and whether or not we ought to have increases in the minimum wage.

It has now been over 7 years since Congress last raised the minimum wage to its current level of $5.15 per hour. Since that last increase, Congress's failure to adjust the wage for inflation has reduced the purchasing power of the minimum wage to record low levels.

That it is logical, fair and reasonable to maintain the purchasing power of an hour's work in terms of goods and services the employee must purchase in his daily living.

I am quite uncomfortable using legislation to peg the minimum wage.

I'm more concerned about maximum wages, not minimum wages.

The value of the minimum wage shouldn't be eroded, and it has been.

No family gets rich from earning the minimum wage. In fact, the current minimum wage does not even lift a family out of poverty.

During Seattle's successful campaign for a $15 an hour minimum wage, our opponents would sometimes roll their eyes and snort, 'If $15 is so good, why not $50?' It was a straw man argument: Nobody was proposing a $50 minimum wage; it would have been too high, and we said so.

We took the position we wanted our people to be better than minimum wage, so we're going to pay better than minimum wage, and we still do that.

At the current $5.15 an hour, the federal minimum wage has become a poverty wage. A full-time worker with one child lives below the official poverty line.

Today, the Federal minimum wage purchases less than it has at any point in the last 50 years. Let me repeat: The Federal minimum wage purchases less than it has at any point in the last 50 years.

I thought I was answering a question that I had heard that was about increasing the minimum wage - would I consider that. So let me just go on record and say this: I am not for decreasing the minimum wage. I did not say that and that is not something I would consider.

My question becomes, 'If we want to empower people with higher pay, there are probably better ways to do it that are more enduring than simply a federal mandate on wage level.'

I have no issue with raising minimum wage, but then the customer can't say to us, 'Why are you raising your prices?'

Let me just go on record and say this: I am not for decreasing the minimum wage.

If you go from $7 to $15 in a very short period of time, potentially that could have a negative effect on some economies because that is a very big jump. And you're saying to businesses that employ a large number of minimum wage workers, your payroll is basically going to double. That could have a negative impact. It would have to be studied.

I have said, on a number of occasions, that we could have a lower minimum wage or no minimum wage.

Barack Obama and Kay Hagan think that the minimum wage needs to be the same in the mountains of North Carolina and in the city of Boston - it makes no sense to me.

I have never said I was against raising the minimum wage.

Statistical studies are all over the lot about the pluses and minuses of raising the minimum wage.