Red States Sue Biden For Raising Minimum Wage For Federal Contractors

Red States in the South are suing the Biden administration for raising the minimum wage for federal contract workers to $15 an hour. This is one of the better things that Biden has done, but unfortunately trying to make sure that people make a living wage is a step too far for Republicans, and they want to go back to paying poverty wages to people doing work for the government. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

A group of red states in the South are suing the Biden administration to make sure that they can continue to pay federal contractors poverty wages. The issue here, which by the way, is being challenged in court by Texas' Republican indicted attorney general, Ken Paxton, is an order from the Biden administration last year that raised the minimum wage for federal contract workers. Basically any contractor working for the federal government minimum wage is $15 an hour. If they are a tipped federal contract worker, it's a little over $10 an hour plus tips. Well, Louisiana, Mississippi, and of course, Texas leading the charge here have said, we can't do this. We absolutely cannot pay people a living wage. So we're just gonna sue so that hopefully we can get this mandate reversed and take away the, the raises that 300,000 American workers received last year. Because of course, that is the estimate of the number of people that would've seen their wages go up under this order.

But for these three Republican controlled states, nope, not good enough because they say this would do untold harm to their economies, which proves these individuals, these states, the people running them both Democrats and Republicans actually, they know nothing about the economy. Do you know what happens when you put more money into the pockets of the working class? They spend more money. And of course we have talked about that for years. Studies have proven this time and time again. We've seen it in states and cities that have raised their minimum wages to $15 an hour. It results in more money being spent in the local economies. Workers have more money to spend. They spend more money. They're not wealthy enough to go hide it offshore. They're not making enough yet to be able to just stash it in savings. They use it to buy things.

They use it on childcare. They use it to go out to eat. They use it to make car repairs that they've been putting off forever. Hell, they use it to buy medications they previously couldn't afford. All of it puts money back into these areas where the people get the raises and Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi are trying to take that away because they think, golly gee, we just can't afford it right now. No, the truth is you can't afford not to do this. This is why we have the fight for 15, which at this point should be fight for 20 or even fight for 25. When more money goes into the hands of working class people, the overall economy improves. It helps create more jobs, because more people are spending money. Demand increases in these areas and therefore employment continues to rise. Again, this is basic economics that apparently nobody in these states bothered to take in either high school or college. So they're trying to sabotage everyone because God forbid people get paid a living wage.