6/5/15 - Transcript - "Raising the Minimum Wage: Will it provide a livable wage or kill jobs in Los Angeles?"

On Thursday, April 30, 2015, Town Hall Los Angeles presented the program, "Raising the Minimum Wage: Will it provide a livable wage or kill jobs in Los Angeles?" a debate between Rusty Hicks, Executive Secretary-Treasurer, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, and Gary Toebben, President and CEO, Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. The discussion was moderated by Jon Regardie, Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Downtown News. The heated debate included discussion around the impact of a minimum wage increase on small businesses and non-profit organizations, the importance of education to lift minimum wage workers out of poverty, and the difficulty of doing business in certain industries where profit margins are small and instances of wage theft hurt legal, compliant businesses.
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???I think the question before the city really is, what kind of city are we going to have? ??And is it good or bad that there are three quarters of a million people living in the city of LA making less than $15.00 an hour? ??Is it good or bad that $26 million is stolen out of the pockets of workers each and every week? I would argue that that???s a bad thing, and we have the opportunity and a responsibility to do something about it. - Rusty Hicks
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???It???s a myth to believe that because we change wages for some members of a business or an economy, that it creates economic stimulus for the entire economy because economic stimulus depends on new money. ??It depends on more dollars in the pie, and this doesn???t result in more dollars in the pie. ??Any of you here who have run a small business, or all of you have run your own small business, which is your own family household income, understand that if you spend more one place, you have to spend less somewhere else, and that???s what businesses will be facing. - Gary Toebben

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To read a transcript of the conversation in its entirety, click here.

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